Canberra is a very hard place to find good positive cashflow IPs. Actually its impossible. Our family has 4IPs in canberra but currently they are all negatively geared. The return is not bad and tenants here are better than other areas in Australia.
I would however wait a little while longer before buying anything here ….. esp. in regard to apartments… there are too many and plus with Defence building its complexes out of Canberra there could be “issues”
Each bank is different and the penalty that you end up paying will depend on your contract. For example you might have to pay an early repay fee plus 1years interest on orginal loan amount. If you are going to sell it than it would be much better to be on a variable rate. i don’t think the rates will move up that fast in the next two years.