Australian plugs are a long way from being ideal as they are remiss IMV on a number of issues. American plugs are not much better. If you want a safe plug then you have to look to UK plugs as they cannot be pulled out by the chord, do not have any part of the connectors which can be touched by little fingers when partially decoupled from the wall socket as the Live and Neutral pins are sheathed / insulated. Also UK plugs are fused within the plug so fault conditions take out the fuse as opposed to burn out the wall wiring (unlikely) but possible. With the rise of the moulded plug most people cant even wire a plug these days!
Mains flex means just that, the cable is made up of multiple strands of a small enough diameter to allow multiple flexing without early failure through fatigue. Moulded mains leads with IEC one end and Aussie plug the other should always be checked prior to use; it is not unknown for these when being made overseas to be incorrectly wired. One UK hifi manufacturer sued a supplier when the earth pin was live!
I hate Aussie plugs because the pins are too thin and easily bent if inadvertently stood on. The stupid way they are wired within wrapping the flex around a holding bend may be good for checking if its wired correctly with the transparent base but the sucky shroud has to be literally stretched over the main pin carrier. The right angle entry plugs are slightly better with the cable 'clamp' (more of a guillotine hard plastic plate) at least by distorting the cable it secures it in place. The horrible self tapping screw has a course thread and just feels wrong driving it into the nylon / plastic cover.
It's hardly surprising that audio folk look for a more robust solution to feeding their audio devices and my advice would be ditch the Aussie and Yank plugs and go for the 13amp UK sockets and plugs. You can get rhodium plated highly polished mains plug that will accept larger csa conductors which will improve the safety of your mains within you home. MKC and Grabtree make good hardware. The stuff you get here is as cheap as chips China made rubbish.
If you really want a better Aussie solution, look for computer distribution outlets (usually 4 to 12 outlets in a single bar but sometimes doubled up). These can have much higher quality sockets which will grip the pins of the fabled plugs much more securely, they usually have a built in circuit breaker too and a steel enclosure all of which enhances screening and security. I have known a lot of audio crazies use solid core (>1.5mm conductor) ring mains cable to hook up their audio but this is not permitted for domestic appliances which can be moved around.
When it comes to mains feeds always look for the lowest resistance cable which is very well insulted and preferably has a shielding braid as well as foil, if its around each conductor then even better. Plugs and sockets look to medical suppliers or industrial as they are more robust / secure. As others have mentioned, plated pins are not uncommon and many copies of well made products litter fleabay. I generally find the US plugs are more robust than local plugs as they are built to handle the proportionally higher currents that the lower voltage demands. Furukawa does not appear to supply their cables with Aussie plugs more to the shame and I am guessing the US is a much larger market than Oz for such things. I would suggest only buying reputable 'name brand' cables rather than the more anonymous chinese cables with no come back / warranty.
As a price guide I would stay above 100 dollars each for 1 mtr length as at least you will get plenty of insulation. Then we come to the other end of the cable
and crappy IEC plugs. Honestly these again are usually bad news as the contact points are relatively small and if you have a revealing system the micro sparks generated by poor contact surfaces can be heard, in this regard tethered equipment avoids one source of noise entering the system. Getting a gas tight welded or soldered cable is ideal but how many can say they have this, not many I'd wager.
A kettle belonging to a friend had a thinnish mains lead, when the kettle was turned on the lead got almost too hot to hold
Make sure you do not have these Chinese specials in your home!
On a final note, the insulation on mains cables should be checked annually as the sheath perishes and cracks pretty rapidly if exposed to sunlight, I have several tools where this has happened so need replacing. All the screws should be checked every couple of years too as the copper stranded conductors spreads out under the compressive load of the screws.
If I can make the time I will include some images of contact points on plugs etc and the general decay to plated surfaces with time, all pretty shocking stuff.