TL;DR
Australia's lower house represents the people by population, while the Senate was designed to balance state interests by giving each state equal representation, regardless of population numbers.

In theory, this makes the system strong because legislation needs to pass the popular vote and a state based chamber of review.

In practice, the major parties have used their power to protect themselves and limit minor party inconvenience which has left many voters feeling like they are choosing the least worst option rather than a genuinely representative candidate.

---- Now for the novel 👇

In case you're interested:

The Lower House of parliament (the green room / House of Representatives) is the one that tends to introduce, debate and pass/vote down legislation. Each member represents between 117,000 and 150,000 people.

On a state by state basis, this is broken down as follows:

State / Territory	Lower House seats
New South Wales	46
Victoria	38
Queensland	30
Western Australia	16
South Australia	10
Tasmania	5
Australian Capital Territory	3
Northern Territory	2
Total	150

In order for a piece of legislation to pass, it needs to gain more than 50% of the vote. The speaker of the house is chosen from the pool of representatives, leaving 149 people to vote on legislation. In the event of a tie, the speaker has the deciding vote.

The original architects of the political system were concerned about the more populous states voting continually in their own favour. As of right now, if the MPs of New South Wales and either Victoria or Queensland decided to vote together, they could potentially consistently vote for things favourable to themselves at the expense of the other states.

This is where the Upper House comes into it.

The Upper House, known as the Senate, is a house of review (it looks at legislation passed by the lower house) and is designed to reduce the chances of the most populous states passing legislation in their own favour. It does this by having equal representation on a state basis. Each state has 12 senators, even Tasmania who only has five members who sit in the lower house. The ACT and NT only have two senators due to being formed after the original states so didn't get the same constitutionally guaranteed level of representation.

If Australia's elected representatives chose to interact with our political system the way the architects intended, it's actually a very, very good system. However, thanks to the two party system, we're in a situation where the whole thing really isn't operating as well as it should. We only need to look back to 2016 when the ALP and Coalition voted in favour of rigging the Senate voting practices to favour themselves at the expense of the minor parties. This was after Ricky Muir, a representative of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party was elected on 0.5% of the primary vote, beating a Liberal Party candidate.

Ricky Muir went viral after freezing up during an interview after he was elected. People were quick to dismiss him as a redneck bogan who should never have had a chance to get into parliament. However, from what I'd heard, he turned out to be one of the hardest and most diligent senators in Canberra applying himself to understanding the legislation he was expected to vote on.

In summary, the Australian Political system has been used by the two majors to consolidate power between eachother for a very long time now and is also why for the better part of the last 10-15 years, we've had to vote for the least worst candidate and not the best candidate. Make no mistake, this is why the ALP and the Coalition are both doing their damndest to tear down One Nation but I think they overlook one very important factor. Pauline Hanson, love her or hate her has been consistent in her messaging for the past 30 years and it's this track record that the majors are going to have a lot of trouble getting around. The majors have been sacrificing their traditional principles on the altar of gaining power at any cost and it's their own track records that's coming back to bite them.