This isn't just happening in Australia; it's global and it's the zeitgeist.

I think we will be moving to new models beyond the nation state in the next 50 years. Often, when institutions and old establishment thinking get intimations of their mortality they become more aggressive and controlling. I think that's what we're seeing now.

BTW, I don't think what will replace nation states is a super state like the EU. I think that's a (destructive) dead end and just a dumb scaling up of the nation state construct. I think instead we'll see smaller entities (like the old city states), a more transactional approach to 'citizenship' and eventually more fluidity and flexibility. But it's going to be a chaotic, and non-linear transition.