I dunno, I was in Australia is their spring and I went to dinner with a couple of aussies in an outdoor cafe that had trees full of magpies and cockatoos and nobody batted an eye, much less expressed any hesitation with being around them.
That's because you were sitting still. Magpies rarely swoop people who aren't moving.
The article is pretty accurate - while Magpies aren't the most dangerous animals in Australia, they are much more likely to attack you than most more dangerous animals. That's what makes people very wary of them - snakes, spiders, crocs - for the most part you can avoid them. Magpies come after you.