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I've seen people talk about stripping plastic models with simple green, so my question is this: What the hell is simple green? And, for the other Australians, is it called something else here?

ITs a cleaner.
http://www.simplegreen.com/

As hot sauce said it is a cleaner. Its also called simple green here too but it can be kinda hard to track down. Heres what you do though. Hit up your local Bunnings right? Ask one of the staffers where you can find the home cleaning products. They should point you to the right aisle. Don't ask them where the Simple Green is because they will just cock their heads to the side and give you a funny look.

Now there are a few different types available such as hand soap and tile cleaners, etc, but the one you want looks like this.... Its the All purpose cleaner.




Just toss the foaming applicator seeing as you wont need it. If the SG is not with the home cleaning products look for the industrial cleaners. Some Bunnings stock it with the heavy duty cleaners instead of the "around the house" stuff, not quite sure why though.

2liters of SG should set you back about $20. It will last you a while though.

What you are looking for is Isopropyl Alcohol

For us down under we can use Dettol quite effectively.

You can also get pure Iso Alchy from Jaycar Electronics in a pump pack but it costs a fair bit more than the Dettol.

Edit: I note it isn;t actually Iso Alcohol but Ethoxylated Alcohol , which I think is a bit like metho, not sure. By the MSDS Simple Green is actually 78% water so at $20 for 2 litres you are only getting about 400ml of what you really need. Volume for volume the pure Iso Alky works out much cheaper. You can always water it down if you want, you just have to wait a bit longer for the results.

Note too it depends a bit what you are stripping. Ammonia (either in windex with ammonia or cloudy ammonia) works a treat on Tamiya paints but won't touch Citadels.

I don't think Simple Green is available in Australia. Pretty much every country seems to have it's own set of brands of more or less equivalent products, be they cleaners, degreasers, brake fluids, etc. I think you may need to find a fellow Australian to source something locally.

[edit:] Aaaaaaand ninja'd. Apparently, it can be found. Somewhat tangentially, I think P&M needs a stickied thread listing Australian hobby products and suppliers. Seems like a disproportionate amount of "what is it called in other countries and how can I get it" questions come from Dakka's Australian contingent. Not to imply that Australians are somehow deficient, and thus incapable of helping themselves (lest they sic their army of vicious kangaroos on me), of course. Perhaps a general "Common Hobby Products and Suppliers, by Country" thread would be more appropriate - there's one for bits already, but I feel these questions crop up enough to justify a parallel thread.

I also see it listed as a BBQ cleaner on the Bunnings website mate, so might want to look there is you decide to go for it over Dettol or the pure stuff .