Yep, sounds pretty bad, alright! The store has a shipping program that calculates shipping charges directly from UPS and Fedex. Sounds like you selected one of those.
Had you selected USPS International Priority the rate would have been much lower. Certainly not $6.50, however -- that cost just does not exist for anything to Australia.

Strange you would not have written me or [email protected] with the question. Quite often on foreign shipments the shipping quotes are way out of line. When and if you contact us directly, we can often find lower rates and manually over-ride the store software.

Hope this helps,
Rick