The only time I’ve ever watched something on there in full was when ‘Keeping Mum’ with Rowan Atkinson and Maggie Smith was in the rotation. That was actually a decent film, way above the average quality.

I don’t sail the high seas because I don’t want to stress about the risks (or very likely forget an important precaution).

You’re right to be cautious, but Australia is generally a fairly low risk country with regards to prosecution of copyright infringement so realistically you would most likely be fine. With torrenting there is always some level of risk due to copyright trolls monitoring and logging IP addresses they find in the swarm, so a VPN is a precaution I would always recommend. But in terms of sites like FMovies and others, they generally pull directly from file sharing sites so you are not actively engaging in file sharing when you use them. Because of this users aren’t targeted in the same way and the approach in Australia has just been to block them through DNS filtering (which can be easily circumvented by adjusting browser settings). There is very little (if any) risk to using these sites without a VPN, so if you have a smart TV they are a really simple alternative. You can bookmark them in your browser and watch through there, or through a laptop with an HDMI cable. The only downside is that the rips are generally limited to low bitrate 1080p and below, so the video and audio quality is not great. Then again, many people do not care about or notice this.