For sums above US $10.000, it's worth getting a good exchange rate instead of just happily donating money away.
And the thing is, every single major bank will ROYALLY screw you on the exchange rate spread (while smugly pretending that there are "no fees" !). The fee is hidden in the spread between buy/sell.
The way around this is to use an exchange broker that specializes in these kinds of transactions.
This is how you do it:
1. Open an AUD bank account i Australia as soon as possible. Look into the 100-points of ID system. You'll need an Australian address(use works address), a Tax File Number(get from ATO online) and some ID basically (passport).
2. Open an ozforex.com currency exchange account.
3. Make a deal with ozforex to exchange AUD->USD(they charge no fees and their exchange rate is pretty good by default but more on that later)
4. Deposit the correct USD amount in their USD account in America. Note this is not an international transfer it's a local US funds transfer so it's pretty fast (1 day usually).
5. They will deposit the corresponding amount in AUD in your local account in Australia. Done.
Now, for amounts above $100.000 ozforex.com are willing to negotiate on the spread that they take (this is not advertised of course : ), it's around 9 bps I believe which is already pretty good.
But here's how you get an even better rate for larger sums.
1. Negotiate the spread a few bps.
2. Don't use the "spot price", tell them you want to place a limit order. You will need to place/amend it over the phone but you can view online just fine.
To determine a reasonable limit price of your order, look at this chart of the actual exchange interbank exchange rate a few days/weeks back (depending on how long you're willing to wait for your order to go through and be locked-in).
This is what the banks and ozforex are dealing with:
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=AUDThe thing with currencies is that they have a tendency to fluctuate quite a lot, and you can always lower your limit price if you need the money faster.
Your limit order will eventually hit one of the ups of the market and all of a sudden you've got a better exchange rate than the interbank spot price at that time because your deal is locked in whereas the market will keep moving.
Not bad for 10 minutes of work.
Eventually you have a deal with ozforex.com ("xe.com" are similar but I have not used them myself but I hear good things) and end up with nice clean fresh AUD.