I'm born here and a citizen, however I don't have a passport, nor a copy of a birth certificate yet I need to prove I have a right to work here for a job.
From my look on the gov site, I can use a passport to get my birth certificate or a birth certificate to get a passport. Neither of which is any bloody help.
Once you've got a birth certificate sorted I would recommend going a bit further with the document hunt - assuming you were born after 1986. If you ever need to prove you're a citizen (which you may for some jobs) and you were born post '86 you'll also need to track down a copy of a parent's Australian birth certificate or other proof of their Australian citizenship before your birth. You'll also need this proof of citizenship if you want a passport in the future so it's worth tracking down.
If you were born post '86 your Australian birth certificate is not considered sufficient proof of you being an Australian citizen (not sure on the reason for that year being the cutoff), so if you're going for the natural born Australian line of proof you would then need to prove you had a parent who was a citizen at the time of your birth. It doesn't necessarily need to be your parent's birth certificate, a passport from before your birth would also count (as would the certificate you get when becoming a citizen if they weren't born here).
At least though my generation only has to go back one step to prove citizenship. It's going to be harder work for the growing number of people who have parents born after '86 and will therefore have to go back to their grandparents birth certificates if their parents didn't get a passport or citizenship certificate before they were born.
You must provide a least 3 forms of current identity, one of each from Categories 1, 2 and 3.
If you cannot provide proof of identity from Categories 1 and 2, you must still provide at least 3 forms of identity. At least two of these must be from Category 3.
If cannot meet these requirements, please contact us for further advice.
Category 1
If born in Australia:
An Australian birth certificate
Record of immigration status:
Citizenship certificate
New Zealand citizenship certificate together with passport
New Zealand birth certificate
Category 2
Australia's driver's licence
Australian passport
Firearms licence
Foreign passport
Proof of age card
Category 3
Medicare card
Centrelink or Department of Veterans Affairs card
Security/Crowd control licence
Tertiary education institution ID card
Category 4
Recent utility account with current residential address (issued within last 3 months)
Have you got your identity verified on services vic? If so, you can request a new birth certificate and use your services vic as verification of identity. I just did this recently and the process was pretty smooth.