There's no mention of ID, just boarding pass. I'm pretty sure similar checks in NZ would catch wrong plane boarding (there's usually someone checking boarding passes on the plane too), with no ID check anywhere.
If you had a ticket, regardless of the name on it, you could walk into the airport, go to the gate, and get on a flight. It's a different situation, but things were generally pretty casual, and I just don't recall there being anything dramatic about a simple gate mixup.
But when you get off the plane in Tassie there's the k-9 search...
Also, it wouldn’t be uncommon to joke around (although there are some hard-asses); if they legitimately did recognise a YouTube, I could see them getting a selfie together.