Yep.

Although, if you're an Australian like I am, you must know that this is all going to get worse.

I'm sick of our Government (no matter who seems to be in power at the time) taking every single page out of the American playbook. I like our country, why do we have to try and be them? :(

America didn't invent fascism. It's recycling a playbook that various parts of Europe mastered nearly a century ago. Interestingly, the most dangerous and powerful aspect of American fascism in fact was born from what it took to fight Europe's WW2 mess (and the NSA is a direct descendant of that as well). History is often rich with irony.

The playbook Australia is taking a page out of is a very old one indeed.

Good point. Queensland is about to pass another ridiculous law that curtails human rights and due process: yay! :'(

Fucking seriously? I know it's popular to hate "America" lately -- since it makes a nice big clean target and it gives you a nice fuzzy "edgy" feeling to do so -- but it seems more like Australia's leading the pack when it comes to overreaching soft-authoritarian policy.

Actually, it's more "Queensland" that's the problem, although I think things are going to get rapidly worse at the federal level too.

Fuck my state. Who's idea was it to give a populist idiot (Newman) a super-majority?

(I agree with you, for what it's worth, but there is definitely a not-so-subtle undercurrent in politics of "We should do what America does")

British colonial hangover and the general Australian penchant for self-flaggelation has a lot more to do with authoritarianism in Australia than any philosophy the USA extrinsically promotes. Isn't the island borrowing its culture from Asia now, anyway?