Wow - you are correct however I believe our down under friends are in the same boat...
Ahhh - I have a friend who lives in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and from what I hear from him it hasn't sounded much if any worse that we have had it here in California - - it seems much like the U.S. different territories/ states have different leadership and different levels of Covid BS.
Anyway, Australia is still on my bucket list - hoping in the near future to do a Japan, Philippines and Australia loop - - just need to get to the point where the places we want to go are not requiring fully vaccinated visitors to quarantine - don't want to be wasting weeks locked in a hotel