http://www.ryanair.com/doc/faqs/EU261_EN.pdf
Tiger got themselves into trouble shortly after they started by cancelling a return flight between MEL and OOL, and lots of people turned up at OOL to be told the flight had been cancelled, and they had all received refunds, and they would get no further help from the airline. Because of public outrage, they did charter a PacificBlue plane that night, and more recently when they cancelled they did offer passengers a hotel room for the night, so they have learned?
In the EU, passengers have EU regulation 261/2004 which they can use to bang the airline over the head with if the flight is delayed or cancelled. At the time of the first Tiger cancellation I read the EU rules, and I thought we could do with similar rules in Australia, New Zealand. But I have been assured that good Aussie/Kiwi airlines would not treat their passengers like some of those nasty European based airlines do, so we do not need heavy handed EU regulations here. No one will be interested until a plane load of passengers are stranded on the Gold Coast with full hotels charging families huge walk-in prices. At the moment all we have to protect passengers is the bad coverage the airline will get in the media when it happens.