Reddit mentions of The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution

Not Australian, so i can't help you with the Australian issues, but I can help out with the first part.

Your statement "the way I wrote it is less journalistic and more telling a story, most of it reads like a novel, it's probably not very professional." I am a staff writer at a magazine where I write long pieces, so here are some thoughts on that:

The "professionalism" or journalistic nature of your piece has nothing to do with the structure, but its intent; just because it's not a hard news piece with an inverted pyramid structure, does not automatically disqualify it as professional or journalistic

For example, this random Washington Post story on a new budget proposal has all the elements of a "professional" news story immediately recognizable: a broad lead that lets readers know exactly what the story will be, followed by specifics, data, info, context, etc. Here's its lead:

President Obama’s new budget proposal calls for ten of billions in new spending and several revisions to the nation’s tax code, all of which could have a sizable impact on new and small businesses.

But then check out this piece: Frank Sinatra Has a Cold by Gay Talese for Esquire in 1966. It's widely known as one of the best pieces of American magazine writing by one of the best writers of the generation. This is journalism, too. It sets scenes, and uses detail you're just not going to find in a newspaper piece, and it reads significantly more like a novel. Here's its lead:

FRANK SINATRA, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something. But he said nothing; he had been silent during much of the evening, except now in this private club in Beverly Hills he seemed even more distant, staring out through the smoke and semidarkness into a large room beyond the bar where dozens of young couples sat huddled around small tables or twisted in the center of the floor to the clamorous clang of folk-rock music blaring from the stereo. The two blondes knew, as did Sinatra's four male friends who stood nearby, that it was a bad idea to force conversation upon him when he was in this mood of sullen silence, a mood that had hardly been uncommon during this first week of November, a month before his fiftieth birthday.

There's a significant value for people who can tell stories beyond the inverted pyramid structure, and I particularly appreciate people who can write non-fiction stories with with such vivid detail and unique writing style.

If you're more passionate about the storytelling aspect of non-fiction stories, instead of hard news, I'd recommend perusing the longform.org site for links to present-day stories that do it well. I'd also recommend these books for some inspiration and for intro into authors you may dig:

The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight by Marc Weingarten

The New New Journalism by Robert Boynton.

Feel free to send me a PM.