There's definitely a strong culture of having longer resumes in Australia - my original resume was 3-4 pages long, which I whittled down to 2 when I moved to the US (and could easily get down to 1 now). I think it's a waste of time though, no one actually reads through all that stuff when it's that long. If people need further detail after seeing a one page summary they can ask.

But obviously you just have to deal with whatever people expect. I wonder if the agents are right though, or if it's just what they're used to? I've only ever hired in Australia, only applied for one job while I was there, so I don't have no first hand knowledge of applying for jobs with a shorter resume. I know I definitely appreciated the shorter resumes when I had to look through them though.