You usually just tie your leader straight to a jig head with your plastic attached to it. There are a few different types of plastics- some with burley already on them, some made out of fish food, and some made out of durable plastic (and some none of the above). Adjust your jig head weight and hook size/gauge to your target species/depth/conditions.

for a beginner, I recommend a gulp jerk shad in nuclear chicken to target dhuies and then go from there 

Thanks new age I'll give it a crack, on a recent trip to the abrohlos my brother said he's mates out fished him with plastic so I thought I'd better have my bases covered for the next trip.

Mate we have some great site sponsors in Oceanside south of the river, and Compleat Angler Nedlands north of the river, that have great knowledge on how to fish with plastics. They'll probably just ask you your target species and depths you normally fish and they'll reccomend whats best!

 hey mate i'm no expert but when i'm out in the boat i offen leave a rod in the rod holder just off the bottom with a plastic on it and let the rock of the boat do the work even caught fish at night using the glowing gulps and this method, this leaves you free to spin with another lure off the back and get your self a coldy!  

Mcarthys 6" paddle tails are the go for Dhuies while drifting i recon.  I love the nukelear chicken gulps for snapper when anchored with burley, but i have found while drifting deeper get alot of smaler stuff biteing the tails off.

Fluorcarbon leader about 2m long tied directly to main line without any swivles and a loop knot onto jig head is the best way to rig them.