Bark - not so good for vegies as it takes up nitrogen from the soil. Better for other parts of the garden where you do not want to replace mulch too often.
Leaves - Saves money, but you need a lot of them.
Grass - grass clippings break down fast but add nitrogen to the soil as they do. It's best to use grass clippings in thin layers or to let the grass dry before spreading it as a mulch otherwise it starts to stink and rot as it decomposes. I don't use grass as it usually contains weed seeds that sprout and has chemicals on it - even if I don't use them others do, and this goes onto the grass from runoff.
Straw - takes a while to breaddown so is economical, can contain seeds for weeds though.
Compost - Perfect if you have enough home made, expensive otherwise.
Gravel - too hard to remove for next year!
Pea Straw - Good for vegies as it fixes nitrogen into the soil, fairly cheap, can contain weed seeds.
Sugar Cane - No weed seeds, takes a reasonably long time to break down, Can be a bit expensive.
Lucerne Hay - Plenty of nitrogen for the vegies, breaks down fairly quickly and is a reasonable price.
I went with Lucerne as I know it will add to the soil and is mid price range with no seeds. First water the bed thoroughly, then add the mulch, then water again. (if you don't do this it will be very bad for the vegies!).
Just after we mulched, we had rain, the first since we put the vegies in, and the first in around 8 weeks at least. Looks like we are in for a hot and dry summer. (we are having bushfires already in Sydney!) What is it about rain that is better than tap water? The vegies all took off, you could almost hear the mint growing. Even though the soil is moist today, the mulch was dry, so I gave it a spritz of water to freshen it up.
You need to mulch in Australia, because we have hot weather that draws the water out of the soil. With mulch, you can water less, because the soil does not dry out.
Here is a picture of our newly watered and mulched beds:
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