If you are travelling to Australia as a tourist or to visit family or friends, and hold a passport from an eligible country, you can apply for a Tourist/Visitor ETA-Subclass 976 Australian visa online.  The visa lasts for 12 months (or the expiry date of your passport) whichever is the sooner. You can enter Australia as many times as you wish as long as you do not stay more than 3 months at a time. The ETA visas are processed quickly and are logged against your machine readable passport. Your passport will be read before boarding your flight to Australia and the visa will show as granted. If you loose your passport before travelling you would need to apply for a new ETA visa to Australia as your new passport would have a different number. Most airlines flying to Australia have the facility to accept ETA’s, however a few do not so check first details are on www.instanttravelvisa.co.uk