It has been more than three years since Andrew Wilkie, the whistleblower turned politician, warned Parliament Australia was on the cusp of becoming a police state.
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The Member for Denison, who first came to prominence for exposing the weapons of mass destruction untruths used to justify Australia's involvement in the second Gulf War, had a list of 10 principal concerns.
Second on the list was "the manipulation of the media; the use of bullying techniques against the media by government ministers".
The fourth item on the list was the imposition of a "ludicrous level of secrecy..."
The tenth was "Security agencies acting beyond their legal powers and not being held to account for that".
In the 36 months that have elapsed since then we have seen all this, and more, come to pass.
Wilkie's concerns appear to be chillingly prescient given this city has just seen seen its second raid on a private home by AFP officers believed to be investigating whistleblowing activity in three months.
Wednesday's raid on the home of Cameron Gill, a former senior adviser to two Turnbull Government ministers and an Australian Signals Directorate employee, brings the total number of such incursions to three when June's AFP visit to the ABC's Ultimo offices is taken into account.
While both the AFP and Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, have gone to great pains not to link the Gill raid to the similar visitation to the home of News Corps' Annika Smethurst, others have been more than happy to join the dots for them.
"The AFP raids on journalists were not intended to intimidate journalists but the people who have the courage to talk to journalists," News Corps' Campbell Reid said on Wednesday.
"Today we are seeing that process of intimidation continue."
The fourth item on Wilkie's list was the imposition of a "ludicrous level of secrecy..."
This week's raid, which culminated with AFP officers carrying large plastic rubbish bags filled with alleged evidence to a waiting black station wagon, came hot on the heels of a call by Home Affairs chief, Mike Pezzullo, for the person who spoke to Smethurst to be jailed.
The Canberra-based News Corp reporter had broken a story saying moves were afoot to allow the Australians Signals Directorate to spy on Australians within the country for the first time ever and that they would not need to obtain a warrant.
"The person who gave her the document broke two confidences," Pezzullo told the parliamentary inquiry into press freedom. "...they leaked a top secret document and, frankly, subject to judicial process, they should go to jail for that."
Pezzullo also told the inquiry he believed that the AFP were close to tracking the source of the leak down.
It was almost serendipitous that Wednesday's raid on the home Gill shares with his wife, Australia's ambassador to Iraq, Joanne Loundes, took place while the Parliamentary inquiry into press freedom was still in session.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman's office has just asked the inquiry to consider extending the protections that apply to journalists to whistleblowers.
"The committee may... wish to consider whether the confidentiality protections of the Public Interest Disclosure Act should extend to situations where a person has made an external or an emergency disclosure to a journalist," it said.
Given the lengths this government and its security agencies are going to to stop potential leakers from taking concerns to the press this is the least that should be done.
