So as the title says how does one re-build credit history in Australia?

Are there are Department Store Credit cards that one can get easily?

Any specific companies that one can start with?

How easy are car Loans to get? We paid a deposit on a car we liked and are keeping our fingers crossed the Loan gets approved.Have a job offer letter as the only support.

From your sig, seeing as you only just landed, do you mean 'build in the first place', rather than rebuild which sort of implies you have been a silly/naughty bunny with credit in Aus and now need to sort your life out?

If its the former, I'm under the impression that it works the other way from the UK in that you get a good rating to start with, and then the more credit you get, the worse your rating gets. For mobile phones, and big credit items (eg a house) other people have said you need things like 3- 6 months payslips, for other things a job contract and pay statement will be accepted, I guess it varies from person to person depending on the specifics as well though (eg for a house, how large a deposit you have).

I'm sure someone helpful who works in the industry or something will be along soon, just thought I'd get the ball rolling

You are sooo right...it should be titles "Build" not "rebuild" as I am not rebuilding credit history in Australia.

No one in Australia has a "credit rating" per se. The credit check providers have the amount of credit you have applied for and when on file plus any defaults or judgements - they do not rate you in any way.

When you apply for credit the company you apply to has their own scoring system which takes this into account. Frequent applications however can cause problems though. When they look at your loan application it's all based on disposable income after debt payments etc. They may also have minimum time in job etc requirements.

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation. This really helps. On a good note, the car loan we applied for has been approed, but they want to wait till I start my job on Friday. So will get the car over the weekend. I am not very concerned about the Interes rates at the moment as getting a good payment history is key. Anyhow we will be hopefully paying it off sooner.

There is no such thing as a good payment history over here, only loan applications and missed payments are added to your credit file. By regularly applying for credit over here you damage your "rating" and you'll find banks are less willing to lend to you.

Also they take into account available credit (i.e. credit card limit) not average monthly spend so a large credit card limit can affect you availability to borrow on your mortgage even if you never use the card.

Thanks spottydog.

We now will have a car Loan on our credit file. We do not have any credit cards in Australia yet. Do departmental stores offer credit cards here?

They do, most CC's here have annual fees so you need to work out which is best for you if you want a store credit card