You definitely need to sit down with a specialist to discuss it - tax lawyer, financial planner or accountant.

As Bug's Mum says, the loopholes that allow people to gain benefit from family trusts, whether that be asset protection, tax offset etc, have been significantly closed by the ATO so they are not what they used to be. The ATO has made a highly concentrated attack on trusts for the last few years. My DH is self employed but we have not bothered with a trust purely because it won't protect diddly squat for us.

And no, I don't feel badly of you. We all need to do what we can to make our financial lives as easy and safe as possible, just like we do the physical and emotional side of things. I hope you can get some advice on how to structure things to work for you.