Originally Posted by Nottingham Nick

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Since VS stopped flying to Australia, I have always used a combination of VS to Hong Kong - a hop over to KL and then Air Asia business class to Oz.
It is far from ideal. Air Asia isn't proper business class by any stretch of the imagination, or even close - but they use seats similar to the old J2000 seats that VS used many years ago - they almost go flat, and I get a good night's sleep on them. The advantage of Air Asia is their price - especially if you wait for one of their fairly frequent sales.

The other option, which also is far from easy, or cheap, may be to go the other way VS to LAX, and then ANZ or even Hawaiian the rest of the way.

Nick