Upwork and various sites like it have plenty of people making way above minimum wage. You have to spend some time sorting through the nonsense, but it's there.

If you're in North America, speak fluent English, and you can actually program, steady jobs in the $20-$30 an hour range are easy to find. (note that if you're a decent developer living in North America, I wouldn't advise working for those rates unless you have a specific reason to, e.g., you want easy jobs that are easy to find or you really need money now.

Living in Melbourne it might be a bit harder because of the time zone difference you lose a bit of the advantage North American developers have over eastern Europe, India, and other low cost of living countries.

I still think it's probably doable.

There are jobs on those sites paying decent developer wages as well, but those are harder to come by. I did a bit of work on Upwork and other sites before I started finding work through the Hacker News find a freelancer and upped my rates to $100 an hour.