I personally think the cladding would look nice and be the easiest to maintain. We also live on the Gold Coast and have a brick house that has been rendered (not by us) and, to be honest, it is not particularly low maintenance (if you want it to stay looking good that is). It is prone to leaching which leaves ugly stains so regularly needs retouching with the paintbrush. It can also develop small cracks in the render due to temperature change and movement. However, the most worrying thing for us is with regards to termites. If you render over your brick on the lower half of your house, it is highly unlikely you will see the telltale "mud" they leave that indicates they are trying to gain access into your house (they climb up in between the render and the brickwork). I would be trying to keep the exposed bricks in preference to rendering over them, particularly if you have a garden bed up against the house anywhere.

Your house is going to blend in very well with it's surrounds once the timber has silvered off, if you choose to use colours like Colorbond Woodland Grey, Dulux "Pavings Stone" (left hand side of colour swatch in the image far below) and/or Dulux "Grey Mountain". Other darker colours that will work well in this setting include Dulux "Cambridge Hall" and Dulux "Nomadji" (mentioned before). These greys don't necessarily blend in with the fresh timber but look fantastic as the timber ages and the building is seen as a whole (see image far below). "Paving Stone" is a versatile medium, warm grey that looks really good as a render. It also works well as a neutral internal wall colour in rooms with lots of natural light. In the following image, Dulux "Grey Mountain" was used near the timber work and "Woodland Grey" on the garage walls to help the garage door become less noticeable. Remember that colours generally appear lighter than the sample when applied to external walls and darker when applied to internal walls.

The Bricks are OK, if you like them, keep that round feature deck in the brick and render the rest, or stone clad the feature and render the rest, or cheapest of all just paint the rest in a dark warm neutral and render the round feature in a lighter but similar tone. You have the windows to consider. If you changed the colour of them you could also change the overall colour scheme from warm to cool. Although a black and white scheme is current, it looks better on timber houses and in suburban and inner city areas in my opinion. There are lots of different elements to your house which would look more integrated if you chose a warm colour scheme with a maximum of 3 colours. You can even make the bricks work if you paint upstairs a warmer colour to match them and changed the tiles and front steps to wood. Wood integrates everything in a warm colour scheme.

Here is a pic of our front facade and the right hand side facing south. Also open to other options not just render and colorbond. Would love some feedback! Thanks