Visting America was a different story though: I'm getting fingerprinted, and people are jumping queues, and the security is crazy... and all I'm thinking is "Why did I bother?"
Waiting for americans to care enough about the discomfort of vistors (relative to motivation to be there) might take a while.
Really? I brought a bunch of weird looking folding bike parts in a taped together laundry bag and got waved right though.
Because of the isolation, we don't have too many pestilence problems (gross oversimplification) and we want/need to keep it that way.
As for the phillipines - they've been trading with other nations for a long time, as have Japan. I'm guessing that the transfer of pests and diseases happened a few centuries back.
Australia is unique in that basically no trade of any kind happened until 200 years ago. There's been a lot of mistakes, but that's no reason to give up.
One english settler decided, in the 1830s or so, to release a small hutch of rabbits so they could scamper around his property and he'd be able to take potshots at them for fun. The rabbits went on to systematically destroy most of the arable land in the country.
It's not only the agricultural industries. Many of the unique Australian wildlife has never been subjected to common animals from the rest of the world. The fox decimates native mammal populations.
I could go on and on. There was a fire ant quarantine breach a few years back and they literally hunted down every nest and colony that had occured and (I think) have re-declared fire ant free.
So, if you're travelling to Australia, don't treat it as some sort of TSA impost. Be thankful that people are there protecting the borders so you have some unique animals, and fantastic food quality to come and see.
Fun fact : I have a friend who is a dog handler in an Australian airport. The worst offenders are little old ladies of either asian or middle eastern origin. They're always carrying some noxious weed as part of an old family recipe to cook for their descendents who have settled in Australia. So if you see someone with a dog bailing up an old lady in an Airport, you know why.
On the plus side - they will clean your boots for you, free of charge - they do a fine job of it as well. Unless you're trying to hide your muddy boots, then you'll get fined a couple of hundred bucks for being sneaky. Best to declare your boots and get them cleaned for you.