I think Justin Ma has given a good foundation of the correct answer already, with the comparison chart and what he wrote about both Ancestry and 23andme.
Being someone who did both test with 23andme and Family Tree DNA (Family Tree DNA - Genetic Testing for Ancestry, Family History & Genealogy) I can say that apart from the numbers of people who tested (including which tests they took, autosomal gives you relatives across all your ancestors, Y-DNA only gives it along your male line and mtDNA only along your female line) there are a couple of other factors that are very important:
- the number of relatives you get
I've answered this for 23andme in this answer (Andreas West's answer to What is the average number of DNA relatives for a 23andMe customer?) and as all companies are applying different minimum criteria you get different number of relatives. 23andme is the middle, see above for how many you can expect. For FTNDA you get the least number of people but you're also sure that everyone is indeed family (IBD) and not just from the same population (IBS). For the difference of both please read this excellent blog: Matches - Family (IBD) vs Population (IBS)
For Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.com you get by far the most matches but as the number of relatives that you have never changes (only the number of relatives that took a test is changing over time and yes, more relatives are born each day) a lot of the relatives that they indicate are indeed population only.
- quality of family trees and paper trail research
That is another very important point. DNA genealogy is worthless without a paper trail from research proofing it, putting names to those ancestors through which you are eventually led to a common ancestor. On the other hand paper trail research (mostly presented in family trees online or in written documentation or kept in genealogy software programs) is never 100% accurate unless proven via DNA genealogy (as there are errors and events like non paternal events - the father wasn't the one recorded).
In this category Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.com is the clear leader as they focused exactly on that in the past. Collecting masses of sources and help people build up their family tree by researching those sources. When it comes to second place, I would give this to Family Tree DNA as they tend to have better researched family trees. Last place goes to 23andme as they have many customer who just did the test to check on their predisposition towards health risks and medicines. Thus the majority of people tested at 23andme doesn't have a family tree and their knowledge of their family usually ends at their Grandparents or one generation further, a lot is just hearsay. This is especially bad for non American, as their research (or rather the lack of it) ends still in the US and thus makes it hard for non American to connect to them (as the OP asked about Australia - another immigrant country).
- quality of reports & tools provided
Lastly after looking at the number of people that tested (for the various tests available), the quality of their family trees (or rather the absence of them) there is the third important pillar which is what information, report and tools are provided to you by the DNA testing companies to get useful information for your ancestry search.
I've explained in great detail and with many screenshots what you can expect to get from the reports at 23andme and FTNDA in regards to your ancestry composition (Andreas West's answer to Which offers better ancestry composition estimates between FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe, and why?). To further elaborate on this, Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.com is right now (23/9/2014) completely missing any tool and report to tell you on which segment and chromosome your are matching someone. So you will know that you match someone but you can't find out if it's family (IBS) or population (IBS). That's basically making the results pretty useless if you stop right there. But there is a solution to this and customer of Ancestry are usually advised to export their raw DNA data to services like GedMatch (read this excellent blog article explaining what GedMatch can do for your ancestry research that all the three DNA testing companies are currently not providing - Gedmatch: a DNA geek's dream site). Usually customers are just looking then at names and locations of their matching cousins family tree and find the common ancestor this way. But even if they can (given that both of you have researched and proven your family tree until there) it's still not know through which segment and chromosome you match. That's very important as mentioned in the IBD vs IBS article and it prevents you from finding a third (and more) person that match on the exact same segment and chromosome (those making it IBD). Remember that NPE (non paternal events) can lead to you or the other person having a "wrong" surname in their family tree where you will never find the common ancestor. Also, having the segment and chromosome "painted" on to the right part of your family tree helps in narrowing where to look for the common ancestor, a tedious but again very important task.
As explained in my answer to the ancestry composition question I would rank 23andme by far above FTDNA capability in terms of reports, tools and information provided to conduct your ancestry search. Ancestry should actually almost be "disqualified" for their lack of proper tools in this category.
Though the OP was asking specifically for Australia it is important to check which country is currently being serviced in your home country. Not many qualify but apart from visiting eg the US and sending your DNA samples from your hotel address (as you need an address to receive the DNA test kit), sending it through relative in those countries there are always helpful people out there that would act as a middleman to receive the DNA kit and send it to you and vice versa.
To cut a very long story short, how do you rate which is the best service or the best DNA test for ancestry?
My answer is pretty easy, if you have the money and capability, try all three big DNA testing companies named here. Also export all raw DNA data to tools like GedMatch to get matches across different service (remember that each of these companies tests different SNP's, though the large majority tested will be the same - they also test a different amount of SNP's, so you get matches with one that isn't possible with another service).
If that's not possible and you can only do two, I would say go with FTDNA and Ancestry but you must export your raw DNA data to GetMatch (or a similar service). Why is that? Well, apart from being then able to match customers from FTNDA with customers of Ancestry (though they didn't take tests with both companies) if they uploaded their raw DNA data as well you also have the advantage that you will easily find out on which segment and chromosome you match someone (or hopefully many people). I've chosen this combination of the two as both companies have a much better and higher number of family trees researched, their customers are usually answering at a much higher rate as they are also interested in ancestry (rather than the majority of 23andme customer who won't answer at all - for me it's about 25-30% which answers).
Lastly, if you can only spend your money with one company, I would go with 23andme. Surprising, right? Well, the reason why I changed my view vs the two-companies-to-go-with answer is that you get the largest number of people that have done an autosomal test (which is all at 23andme), you get the best tools & report (by far, see my answer above for details and screenshots) and you can use all this information to build up an Excel file with info about who you match on which segment and chromosome. This will eventually lead to common ancestors when you can match another relatives family tree (something I haven't achieved despite having almost 1000 relatives in 23andme with currently 72 triangulated groups and 172 proven relatives in these triangulated groups). Again, please consider to export your raw DNA results to GedMatch to find a lot more matches from the other services.
Currently I only have one common ancestor match which is coming from a relative who also tested on FTDNA and the reason is simple. We both have large, extensively researched family trees. So yes, testing with one or all of these DNA testing companies will give you a lot of relatives (or population matches) but it doesn't help you at all if you don't do the paper trail research in parallel through sources like birth, marriage and death certificates, census, wills, deeds, family bibles and military records.
The old rule still applies, no pain - no gain!
Disclaimer: I'm not employed or in any way affiliated with any of the companies or services mentioned in this answer. All is based on learning, reading and my own experience with 23andme and FTDNA
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