I'm not sure if it makes a difference to waiting times or not but my sister lives in NSW. From memory the whole process has only taken a few months (I'm think 2 to 3) as they were rushed through. It took them a while to decide on what type of care they wanted to do. They opted for long term permament care so they weren't sure they could handle the emergency/critical care. They wanted to be able to provide stability in the kids life.
The actual process of him being switched over into their care permamently starts tomorrow (WOOHOO!!!) and he will be living with them within 4 weeks. It would have been sooner but he has to has an operation the first week of June and they want sister and BIL to have a few weeks of physio with his current short term carer so that everyone is comfortable before the full move.
There are some things which have disappointed them a little bit. Like BIL isn't allowed to bath him, they aren't allowed to bring him into their bed for morning cuddles and they aren't allowed to be called mum and dad or any forms of them. While I totally understand that these need to be in place to protect the children in placement but it's a bit sad that they all miss out on these things. This boys parents have given up all rights to him and they have no contact with him at all so he will be with my sister and BIL until he chooses to move out when he's an adult so they will be all he knows as parents.

What type of care are you and DH looking into lil_chookie??