I've been fascinated by this, and done some further research.
I believe it's actually not a Nintendo Australia design, but rather it's a NCL (Japan) design, since SCN and UKV used that format a lot in the late years, as well.
NOE style box - first party games only
Markets
- Germany
- Rest of PAL markets, sporadically
Games
- First party games only
Used
- 1992-1997 (Germany)
- 1994 (other markets, sporadically)
Designed by
NOA, modified by NOE
Old NCL style box
Markets
- Germany (third party games only)
- Rest of PAL markets
Games
- First party games 1992-1994 (except for Germany)
- Third party games
Used
- 1992-1997 (third party games)
- 1992-1994 (first party games, except for Germany)
Designed by
NCL
New NCL style box
Markets
- AUS, UKV, SCN
Games
- First party games 1995-1997
Used
- 1994-1997
Designed by
NCL
Post 1995, Nintendo released games in PAL regions in both old NCL style and new NCL style for a while, before fully settling on the new style. All games were also released in the NOE style.
Nintendo Australia was the first to adopt the new NCL style, and was most consitent in using it, however, probably because they didn't have NOE close by to mess things up with US-like NOE style boxes.
Here are some examples of the new NCL box in UK and Scandinavia, note lack of Australia rating symbol:
The first ever new NCL style box seems to be Wario's Woods in late 1994, where UKV used old NCL style, and Australia used new NCL style.
The Australian version seems to be incredibly rare, I haven't even been able to find a picture of the AUS box, but the new label shows it's the new NCL style.
According to my calculation, only 13 games were ever shipped in the new NCL style box.
1995+ games with old style NCL box only (+NOE style)
- Tetris & Dr Mario
1995+ games with new NCL style box only (+ NOE style)
- Arkanoid
- Donkey Kong Country 2
- Donkey Kong Country 3
- Kirby's Fun Pak
- Secret of Evermore
- Space Invaders
- Terranigma
- Tetris Attack
- Yoshi's Island
1995+ games with both old and new NCL style boxes (+ NOE style)
- Super Mario World (late SCN re-release)
- Wario's Woods
- Kirby's Dream Course
- Kirby's Avalanche