The article mentions both child abusers and terrorists yet the laws will rarely be used for that. Mandatory metadata retention was also bought in for the same reasons and has barely appeared as evidence in any subsequent cases, despite >300,000 warrantless metadata requests last year, overseen by a handful of public servants behind closed doors, in a country of 25 million people.

Another very concerning law is about "fixated persons", which was bought in with big budgets and huge teams of detectives solely dedicated to going after lone wolf terrorists, so far the only person charged is a former mining executive who was a respected lawyer and Head of Compliance at one of Australia's biggest gas companies (One of the largest gas exporters in the world.)

She turned whistleblower on some corrupt deals and environmental coverups involving certain fracking leases and the government. After contacting the Mining Minister about it over the space of a few months, instead of investigating, the Minister referred her to the police, she was then deemed a "fixated person", which involved incarceration without charge, being taken to a mental institution and forcibly injected with anti-psychotic drugs for months. Eventually a judge decided she could go home. All media coverage of it is banned in Australia until the trial is finished, which has been postponed at every hearing for over a year now, time heals all wounds I guess.

It's naive to think that those in power wouldn't abuse such laws. I'm all for giving police the powers they need and perhaps even more as long as there is transparent oversight and it's targeted, but the complete opposite is happening in many places on Earth right now. Monsters flourish in the darkness.