Ms Neill, who is in her husband Ben’s hometown of Warrnambool to visit family with their seven-month-old daughter Aria, watched the US election unfold on TV and said the result made her “ashamed to be American”.

Ms Neill voted for Hillary Clinton prior to flying to Australia, leaving behind an election campaign so nasty, divisive and hateful it had “changed friendships”.

“I think I’m happy to be here while it’s going on because people are much more in shock like I am,” she said. 

“It’s not like people are rooting for Trump here. They’re saying ‘how is it happening?’.

“I don’t know how it’s happening. It’s less scary here.

“I’m from the (San Francisco) Bay Area, which is such a liberal area, so I wouldn’t be confronted so much with the hate from the Trump campaign.

“But this whole election has been nasty. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what this means for America.

“People are so uneducated in how far America has come. This will take us back to the Dark Ages. They’re throwing votes at something trying to create change through propaganda. It’s like Brexit. No one thought that was going to happen. Half of America didn’t even know what Brexit is.

“There are so many uneducated, untravelled and unresearched Americans voting for something that they don’t know how it’s going to affect the world.

“I’m ashamed to be American. I didn’t even feel that way when Bush was elected for a second time and I didn’t support Bush. I would take George W Bush 1000 times over Donald Trump.”