I think a big part of the 'cultural phenomenon' is that obnoxious behaviour doesn't really bother people as long as the obnoxious opponent isn't winning, and people aren't usually obnoxious if they're losing.
Back in the 1980's most people thought West Indian cricketers were the most obnoxious poor sportsman in cricket (Sunil Gavaskar made some extremely ungracious comments about this at the time), the english press also spent large amounts of time bitching about the West Indians poor sportsmanship.
Another example is in the 30's when Jardine's bodyline tactics conquered Australia, Australia's press/fans attacked the character/sportsmanship of the English side because they couldn't combat the tactics. Same thing. If Bradman had been able to win us those Ashes I doubt people would have hated Jardine as much, even though he wouldn't have done anything differently.
The sportmanship would have been exactly the same, yet winning/losing leads to a different perception of the same actions. As an example of the other side of the coin, if Sri Lanka were as successful under Ranatunga as Australia were under Ponting, Ranatunga would probably be a lot more hated, and vice versa Ponting would be a lot less hated if he captained a crappy side that lost all the time.
tl;dr: Whenever a sporting side has a long period of dominance, people in the side become arrogant/obnoxious, and at the same time neutral/opposition supporters seek moral victory in place of victory on points.
There's been plenty of good sportsman and polite Australian players over the years, and plenty of assholes playing for other countries.
It's just that media/fans focus on the assholes who are gloating, rather than the polite winners/sore losers, which leads to a distorted perception of sides.
I don't mean to suggest the arrogant/winatallcosts culture of the Australian side isn't there, (I think it is), just that it's exaggerated by other factors (Australia dominating in the not-too-distant past, Warner having a bigger media profile than less obnoxious players like Rogers). It believe it will get better as the T20 leagues bring the international cricketing community closer together.
Also, the whole "Australian culture is inferior" shit can piss right off. I'll assume the OP wasn't trying to imply this, but still.