sgentle has pretty much answered all your questions from the perspective of immigration procedure. Here are my somewhat random impressions & suggestions ...

In terms of the IT industry, it's pretty strong at the moment in Australia. Work - both contracts and full-time employment - is fairly thick on the ground at the moment for mainstream stuff like .NET, Java and Rails (can't believe I'm writing that).

In terms of finding work I strongly recommend hitting up some reputable employment agencies before you arrive. I definitely advise renting accommodation rather than buying, & working as a contractor when you first arrive. Allows you to get a feel for the industry, the country, where you want to live, etc. without being tied down. Contract rates can be very good indeed, I know one dev lead (admittedly with a freakishly good resume) who's on four figures per day in the .NET space, but $500 - $800 is the norm for .NET devs with solid experience.

The driving licence system here is harsh beyond belief. I suggest you both obtain a full drivers licence before moving here, as you can just get it exchanged for a full Australian licence with minimal hassle. If you came over, say, on your equivalent of a learner's it'd take you years to obtain your full licence here.

Australia is a pretty safe place for the most part - I've been living here for years & never had a problem. Australian culture & law is resolutely against personal armaments of any sort, although of course all Police go armed (it's good to be the King). If you routinely go armed in the U.S. prepare to switch to 'under the radar' weaponry like flashlights.

Australian beer is generally very good, but at least in Victoria is heavily taxed & so quite expensive compared with New Zealand. Homebrewing is legal & attracts no additional tax. Costs ~ $30 for 23 litres of good homebrew which is fantastically cheap. IIRC, distilling spirits is legal but requires you to register for some kind of tax.

My friend & business partner informs me that cars are quite expensive compared to the U.S. I doubt it would be practical to ship a car from the U.S. but I wish I'd shipped our Honda Civic over from New Zealand when we moved.

According to the same guy, mobile phone charges (data, voice & SMS) are insanely high in Australia compared with the US. But then Australia seemed so much cheaper than New Zealand when I moved here.

Here in Melbourne one can live in a reasonably cheap area that'd heavily forested (like Upwey, where I live) and be 45 - 60 minutes from town by train. Mass transport here is currently usable but experiencing unsustainable growth. In particular train services are becoming unreliable, especially when it's hot or during heavy rain. Motorcycles are a good bet in Melbourne, as footpath parking is legal in most places. Car parking in the city is expensive & often hard to get ... better off driving to an outlying train station & catching a train. That's known as "park & ride" here.

People in Melbourne are friendly. Especially when you get out to the outlying areas like Upwey ... I recently walked out of the local bottle shop to find a random stranger patting my dogs who were in the back of my Land Rover. We got to talking, then the bottle shop owner came out for a chat ... relaxed & easygoing.

Racism can be an issue. I've not seen much in private-sector IT (my current team has one native-born Australian, one Chinese, one New Zealander, one Indian, one Czech, & one Englishman) but I've seen a fair bit in other industries, especially towards Australian Aborigines. You see the odd ute with a sticker that reads "fuck off, we're full" ... funny but I'd have thought the Aborigines would've had cause to print those 200 years ago, not red-neck white Australians in the 21st Century ;-)

Sport is very popular. In particular, cricket in summer & AFL in winter. I don't play AFL but have played (once, as a substitute) for a local cricket club, and played a season of indoor cricket too. Well worth checking out, especially if you have children. Australian sportsmen are hard, in my experience. Three players on the team I was subbing for suffered injuries (damaged knee, dislocated finger, serious concussion) & all three players refused to retire. The chap with concussion was hospitalised the next day with disorientation & memory loss. Much beer was had afterwards as well. Work hard, play hard is the culture.