lol, you took 2 bus routes and try to argue all Australian Buses route are short??
Have you actually been on any Public Transport in Australia? I am not talking about Express, how many express route is there in each city?
I lived in Sydney, I took 4 bus trip to and from work everyday. And with those 4 trips, 2 of them are medium range, and 2 of them are long. In Sydney, my city, buses route were divided by sections, from 1 to 15. Each section is about 2 to 3 Kilometers. For example. 2 sections bus ride from Parramatta City Interchange would get you to Woolworth in Granville, that's 4.5 km by car. 15 section would bring you about 45 km one way.
In Sydney, most City buses have 15 section, some less, but mostly more. it is not at all uncommon to have a bus to go over 60 minutes on a single trip. 705 from Parramatta to Blacktown Station Interchange. In a perfect day, it ran about 71 minutes from Blacktown to Parramatta. Which cover approximately 50 km ONE TRIP.
http://www.cdcbus.com.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/705 Timetable 30 April 2016.pdf
372 or 374 which is from City to Coogee, each runs about 40 minutes. That's a normal city route.
Depending on the Bus Company and the service they ran, usually if the bus company is a cross MetroCity, it will have a long haul service. Buses like 520, which connects Parramatta to City, would have a 82 minute travel time one way. Which approximately cover 65 km distant.
Then you have Metrobus, which connect MULTIPLE cities. M91 goes from Parramatta to Bankstown then to Hurstville, it take a whopping 110 minutes travel time.
Finally, intercity coaches, basically, it is a long haul route, which goes 200+ km route (like transitNSW regional coaches from Casino to Brisbane)
There are more intercity buses route than express route or city shuttle routes in Australia in general, for example, Hillbus (
www.cdcbus.com.au) have appox 70% of their route have a travel time greater than 40 minutes, only 10% of their route are express/shuttle which is lower than 40 minutes, so you can go figure.