As Rod said in his post try asking for Nitrocellulose lacquer it is available in a variety of gloss levels 35%, 50%, 70%, etc or at least it used to be. I haven't purchased any for many years now but no reason why it wouldn't still be available.
You could also try asking for a precat lacquer which includes nitro. Most paint manufacturers make it so you but you probably need to go to their shop rather than a general run of the mill paint shop.
Haymes Paints, Wattyl, Durobond, Mirrortone are a few (just realised I'm echoing Rod here) My favorite used to be Haymes, still is as they are pretty much the only Australian owned paint company left and I'd prefer to support them than an overseas company that buys us lot up throes the good bits away and keeps the cash cow part.
Painters Pot are Haymes Distributors usually carry it and will get it in for you if they don't have any in stock.
Find Haymes close to Southern Highlands
http://www.haymespaint.com.au/find-a-store/
Lacquer is a specialist product and mostly has been for years as most lacquers need to be sprayed and not everyone has the equipment or the ability to use it because of this. The word lacquer is pretty well misused in the USA as a generic name for a finish of almost any sort. Varnish is also misused as there is little or no varnish available any more. This was made with mixing long and short stand oils and others with resigns and metallic dryers and is almost impossible to get today closest you might come id marine varnish.
Most modern varnish type finishes are polyurethane (plastic) coatings.
Hope this is of some help.
Lacquer isn't all that hard to find in Australia it's just a matter of knowing where to look and the right thing to look/ask for. Yry a google search using "lacquer in Australia".
Cheers - Neil :U