Currently there are several promotions running which enable you to get a refurbished Nook Simple Touch& a cover shipped here for a very decent price. It's a bit of a run around, but could be worth the effort for some of you who want a nice touch screen ereader for Christmas(especially given that Amazon won't be shipping the soon-to-be-released Kindle Touch to Aus anytime soon.)
The refurbished Nooks are, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the new ones.
The basic process involves:
-signing up to ebates to get a $10 Barnes and Noble giftcard
-Shopping through ebates to get 8% cashback from B&N
-Buying an email giftcard from B&N to get an additional free $10 giftcard from B&N
-Using the giftcard to buy your refurbed Nook and Cover
-Getting the Nook shipped to Aus via a mail forwarder
Note that the cashback & free gift cards won't be given to you for a month or two. You can spend the giftcards on Books for the Nook, or a second Nook, or whatever you want from B&N
I've written a much more detailed post about this here: http://pastebin.com/zr8Cp8SF
Hope somebody finds it useful!
I got lost after the first sentence.. soz..