You've predetermined that you want to complain about life in this country, and will argue 'til you're blue in the face as a result. You keep on pointing out the US as being some weird bastion of freedom. Keep in mind that this is the country that gave us 'free speech zones'. Similarly. the US is the country that drives the Anglosphere's campaign against psychoactive drugs, so I'm not sure why you're singling out Australia there. As for RSF's methods being 'highly opaque', I guess them publishing their methodology and questionnaire on the same page as their index doesn't count for some reason? Parts of their method may be opaque, but 'highly opaque'? You're clearly playing the spin doctor here.

As for 'quality of life', I'm not basing it on any measure in particular. Note that 'quality of life' is not 'standard of living', and therefore isn't just a factor derived from economic success. It's just that the socialist 'nanny' countries like those in Scandananvia, Australia, or Canada are almost always in the top 10 for quality of life measures. I mean, you're complaining about some fringe parts of free speech (speech is actually pretty free in Australia - it's really not that much more strict than the US in practise) but missing things like public health, generally low crime, and despite the hype, a country that now has a general handle on tolerance, when compared against other countries.

As an Australian, I don't think banning psychoactive drugs, nor banning "racist" speech, nor mandatory bike helmets, nor bar lockouts at 12pm, nor homeschooling restrictions do anything to improve the quality of life here.

Well, you're most likely Victorian, given these talking points (as am I). If you don't think that banning scare-quotes-racist speech makes life better, then you're clearly not a minority, nor particularly aware of the power of semantics. I have never seen a non-white argue against racist speech laws. Bar lockouts at 12am (pm is noon...) isn't particularly 'nanny', and if you think it is, you should probably travel more. It's pretty normal for bars to be required to close anywhere between 10 and 2. Bike helmets, maybe, but then you should also protest every other safety measure from stop lights to clean water. Homeschooling I'm not familiar with, but you can homeschool, you're just required to show that you are teaching your kids something. What is it about the homeschooling requirements that you think is so onerous? Is it really a 'nanny' state (in the pejoritive sense) if the government tries to protect children from negligent parents?

Similarly, I don't see a problem with Twitter nor Reddit in Australia (Whirlpool is a bit like Reddit). Yes, I doubt 4chan would have survived its early years, given the paedophile content, but there have been a few australian 'chans' over the years with plenty of strongly racist commentary. The other two I'm not familiar with.

Anyway, I love that you dismiss any particular measure that disagrees with you out of hand (no RSF, no HDI). So, give me some objective ways to measure what you're saying. Show me some objective measures that support what you're saying. Because all you've given me is selected data points and anecdotes, and a well-travelled person like yourself knows that those are trivially easy to spin, right?