g'day Mace, Cleanliness is the key, make sure there is a hydrometer and a thermometer in the kit, use only quality ingredients, try the Coopers range and don't use sugar in your brew, use either Coopers no.1 brewing sugar (I know I wrote not to use sugar but this is a generic term) or dextrose which you can get from the supermarket or Big W/K Mart .
Follow the instructions to the letter, look at the Coopers web site or look at home brewing on You Tube or google, when you've made a few sucessful brews you might want to venture into a home brew store and see what's in 'store' for you to make the next improvement in your brewing, talk to the store owner, research and ask questions, learn from your mistakes, you'll make a few but keep records of everything you do and persist with it as you can only get better and don't try to be too cheap with your brewing as it won't save you money, you'll just make crap beer...............cheers Leroy