Hi John,
I found the guitar builder on the 'TRADETANG' website, which is the China equivilent of EBay, it runs PayPal from Hong Kong etc and is well set up but does not have a very good control over 'imposters' etc so it is risky business! Took a while to get the body made up, as it was a 'one off' for this particular factory. In the end, I did wonder whether I might mave been better buying from one of the UK sellers that do advertise hard tail bodies at a reasonable price. Another option that I looked at was a place in your area,
http://www.guitarparts.co.nz/cart/Resul ... category=0He advertises the Allparts hard tail Strat body at $499NZ, which is about what the Chinese body cost me with shipping,but only on special order. Another one in UK, and one that really does interest me is Axes-R-Us, they advertise a hartail Strat body for 148UK Pnds which, depending on the shipping cost, would probably come up to a similar price to the one from the NZ dealer. They are at
http://www.axesrus.com/Acoustic.html and I am sure that I have heard good reports on their stuff from UK members on this website - so they may be options for you perhaps? Items available from the USA usually sit at about $400+AUD, to which you add shipping and it becomes exspensive -particularly when the NZ shop sells the same item for $499NZ! If you want to play the EBay game you can get a bargain, but that tends to be the exception rather than the rule in my experience!
http://stores.ebay.com.au/The-STRATosphere is one I have bought stuff from (Fender Tele Custom '72 body mint and the odd Fender parts) and they sometimes have the Fender Japan 12 string Strat bodies on sale, usually for about $450US approx.
In summary, I can give you the details of where I got the body from China, however I think that 'I could have done better' and wouldn't use that option myself again given the other options that are available.
Hope that helps!