Australia has always had trouble standing up for itself, it used to hide behind Britain, now it hides behind US.
Yes there have been protests, but both major political parties are very similar on "national security", and neither have shown him any respect, despite significant popular support amongst voters.
There used to be a minor center party (Australian Democrats) with a slogan "Keep the bastards honest" which did pretty good for a while, but lost the ground in the center to the major parties. If wikileaks can revive that niche they could win votes from the major parties rather than taking votes from the Greens.
Some big politcal names will write him off straight away, but they embarrassingly just dont understand what hes about, or the demographic that supports him.
He is a chance for a big protest vote, his undoing may be the need to compromise to get things done in politics.