On four separate occasions i've stopped in HNL for 2 or 3 nights for little (less than $150) to no additional cost to the airfare (you have to sort out your own hotel and food, obviously), and what there's no better place to spend a few days killing time and smoothing out the jet lag.
We took to breaking the whole trip into three 7-hour parts, Melbourne-Singapore with 2-3 nights stopover, then Singapore-Dubai with another 2-3 nights stopover, and then the final 7-hour leg Dubai-Paris.
This gave sufficient recovery-time between flights for us poor old 70-year-olds and had the benefit of breaking the 9-hour time-zone difference into three smaller jumps that reduced jet-lag quite markedly.
Breaking the Dubai leg with a Singapore stopover is awesome. Singaporean food markets are an experience not to be missed. Now I am addicted to rose cordial!
Ha! If I had a few extra days up my sleeve, I wouldn't be flying to Australia in the first place!