Melbourne's "cold" weather is handled just fine with a light jacket and maybe a hat; I lived there for almost two years. No pity about cold weather riding from -me-. There are bike racks all over the place in a lot of town. I was in Carlton, where you can't swing a stick without hitting a bike loop in the sidewalk; that might be because it's by the uni though. Bicycle Victoria has a forum with a lot of local riders on it.
Their attitudes on keeping things like bike lanes accessible are iffier - they paint bike lanes, then park cars in them for weeks - the bike lanes aren't even wide enough to park cars in, so expect to take the lane a LOT. Last I checked, anti-bike discrimination was pretty heavy; some idiot scofflaw biker blew through a red light and killed a pedestrian. As a result, laws to get rid of or discriminate against bicycles are popping up constantly, and every shock jock or newspaper looking to pull in some extra readers talks about how the horrible lawbreaking bike riders are being a hazard to society. This is also a reason why people should follow the damn road rules.