If Mike is also a SCUBA diver, you guys should go

Liveaboard at Great Barrier Reef.

Qantas and Air NZ usually have good sales from LAX, $1000 incl tax usually is doable between LAX/SYD. The lowest I have seen is $800. You can sign up their email notification for promo fares.

Qantas Holiday - a subsidiary of Qantas but has its own website - often has some packages that are very reasonable. Its US office is actually at El Sequndo? where LAX is. Our first NZ trip was bought from them, 3 weeks before departure, all over 1-800 communication and they Fedex paperworks to us.

Domestic Australia fares are very competitively priced and no need to buy roundtrip to save money (government passed laws couple years ago, rt = 2xone-way). Because of Virgin Blue, Qantas often has Red-Tail sales online.