This shouldn't be taken as a comment on the status of Australia but:
I don't think that you'd necessarily notice from everyday experience if your freedoms were taken away. The most successful censorship happens behind the scenes. It's in things not printed, and not said. When you're not free to read a book what happens isn't that a police officer comes by and grabs the book out of your hand when you try to buy it. You just don't see it on the shelf. From the censor's point of view, ideally you don't even know it was ever written. Or better yet, they've created a chilling effect where it just isn't written. You don't know about the businesses whose services you'd like to have used or products you'd like to have bought but never hear about because they were denied a permit.
I live in China but I mostly don't notice the lack of freedom here. The main way I notice it is in the effect of the Great Firewall. But most Chinese probably don't notice that either because they just wouldn't think to open google or Facebook or YouTube or because the websites that they do go to don't have links to those places. Instead they open Baidu or Weibo or Youku or Douyin. I did notice when things became less free here starting around 10 years ago when they closed all the DVD shops that used to exist, when the small street-sellers were shut down (people selling street food, or putting out a blanket on the street selling stuff, flowers, bags, etc). But I don't notice it anymore and if you hadn't been around when it was there you wouldn't notice the lack. I'm aware that people have gotten in trouble for things they've said in WeChat groups, but I don't really participate in any big WeChat groups so that doesn't affect me. I'm aware of much more important things happening here, but only because I'm exposed to western media, the typical Chinese person has no idea. I'm reminded of a story a friend of mine told me. He was living in Shanghai during Tainanmen Square, but when he talked to people here about it they didn't even know it was happening.
When I go about my everyday life, I mostly don't really notice the fact that I live in an authoritarian country. My understanding of Australia is that it's still a highly free place, but I'm skeptical that you'd necessarily know from your daily experience if it weren't. I suppose if you engage in political activism in your daily life that may be a counterexample, though only on that particular dimension of freedom, and there are many.
Anyway, this is just thoughts triggered by your post, and shouldn't be read as commentary on Australia's freedom or lack thereof.
