I concur that the article is somewhat misleading, although it is correct in that the Aussie customers will have to pay more.
One thing I'm not clear on is that at least with US Kindles, you can download books to your PC and avoid the Whispernet process. I'm not sure this can be done with the International version. It wouldn't be a great solution anyway (it's a bit clunky) but might be feasible if you're buying a large volume of books.
I find it rather entertaining though that head of the Australian Booksellers Association calls Amazon a "threat" and then wonders why it hasn't set up shop locally.