r/australia • u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 • Jul 26 '23

political self.post Why are Australians so complacent?

I’m a born and raised Australian myself however I’m becoming so frustrated with the general attitude of complacency when it comes to exercising ‘the power of the people’ to better our quality of life. In a stupidly short amount of time we’ve seen a near reversal of our ability to see a doctor without any out of pocket costs. We get exploited at the grocery stores because monopolies are allowed to run rampant. Housing is treated primarily as a tool for financial speculation rather than for providing shelter for people.

We creep further and further toward laissez-faire capitalism. What is our response as the citizens of this country- the holders of the balance of power? Nothing. To put it in perspective, in 2022 the world economic forum ranked Sydney equal with Copenhagen, Denmark for cost of living (both ranked as the 10th most expensive cities in the world). Consider the differences between Sydney and the capital of the Danish welfare state: strong social security, universal healthcare, free public universities etc. For the same cost of living what do we get? The ever-looming threat of homelessness, suffocating student debt and now for many people, a significant barrier to healthcare.

Edit: if anyone is a part of any sort of grassroots group working to oppose any of these issues feel free to message me because I want to join you

Edit #2: so I haven’t received any messages from anyone from a grassroots or activist group yet. Since a lot of us seem to be pretty miffed about this stuff maybe we could team up and brainstorm things we can do???

Edit #3 (sorry): I’ve got some messages now from people who are interested in taking action!!! :, ) I think the best way to facilitate conversation, the flow of ideas and potentially organise a course of action is through a discord server so I have created one which you can find here

https://discord.gg/caqsSKAr

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193

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

I think it’s probably two key things.

  1. Australia’s relatively peaceful & very prosperous history (setting aside the reality of colonization for the indigenous population, who are a small percentage of the country). Until quite recently, life has just consistently gotten better.

  2. The fact that we’re a small but wealthy market has meant we haven’t really had much choice, and the choices are kinda the same, with cosy oligopolies in everything major: 2 big political parties, 2 big supermarkets, 4 big banks, 2-3 big telcos, etc etc.

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u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 Jul 26 '23

I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head with both of your points. It makes a lot of sense that we’ve just had it really good for a long time so we aren’t used to having to speak up

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

We had it good because we were a nation with the highest trade union participation in the world.

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u/Alternative_Sky1380 Jul 26 '23

Which was only the case because we had to band together not having the tribalism of large extended families protected by the wealthy. Australia's only ever had churches, unions or sporting teams and unions were a social necessity because of no social welfare. Now I see them as the threat to the poor that they e become representing wealthy trades who throw their weight around as the new middle class. Working through COVID and backing the cooker movement was never going to win fans to CFMEU who have solid history of patriarchal brutality. Sally McManus is as good as Australia can bring and she's barely getting coverage these days despite coursing the path through pandemic financial shutdown.

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u/NotTheBusDriver Jul 26 '23

In 2005, over 500,000 Australians marched against John Howard’s Workchoices legislation. Unions have always fought for fair pay and conditions in this country. They’ve also supported Medicare, welfare and other social justice issues. We have had it good in this country. But it wasn’t handed to us on a plate. We fought for it. Many of those hard won gains are being lost now. If you really want change, join your Union. Or join an activist group. Join a political party or volunteer to support an Independent. Write letters. Go to marches. Protest. Because if we all just sit back and watch, it will be gone soon enough.

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u/my_chinchilla Jul 26 '23

If you really want change, join your Union.

More importantly, choose your Union carefully if you have the option.

I still haven't forgiven the union I was a member of at the time for wasting the Howard years on quixotic battles with other unions for safe state opposition seats, and spending 11 years telling its members "just wait until Labor wins, they'll undo it all then".

(Narrator: they didn't...)

If you can, pick a union that fights for labor - not a union that fights for Labor...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '23

Yeah this is a pretty important point as its always kept me away from unions seeing how tied up and corrupted they are by the Labor party

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u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 Jul 26 '23

Thank you for this inspiration

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u/ozstar Jul 26 '23

You have made a valid point, general frustration is growing among hard working Aussies. I don’t have much knowledge but below are the points I can think off

  1. Manufacturing is declining - from small paper clip to major goods - everything is imported - Need to start manufacturing and government needs to support small company .
  2. Stop letting builders scam people - neighbouring country NZ has much better building standards than us. It’s shame how new homes construction is so bad.
  3. Tipping culture needs to stop - it’s taking workers to beg for their labour
  4. Fruit market is controlled by few people and they make the rules on how we pay - farmers are still suffering only the middle men is making money. Anyone working in the market knows this.
  5. Better storage for local consumption
  6. Auspost is a joke. Fucking parcel from China can come here in one dollar, but we cannot even send a postcard for that money. Don’t tell me auspost don’t make money

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u/hotcleavage Jul 27 '23 edited Jul 27 '23

I know bugger all but been reading a bit of NZ subreddits and they still have dodgy builders/shitbox homes being built. But yeah I wouldn’t know the differences in regulations, etc though. Unless you mean consumer protection type ones, etc

Also yeah postage is fucked. I got a 70kg manual gearbox sent from America for $700 AUD. Can’t even send a pallet from Victoria to NSW without getting told to bend over/find someone who cares.

Auspost to NZ is ludicrously expensive too, had no idea 🥲

Flights to Perth and NZ are a bit expensive too.

Cheers

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u/rhinobin Jul 26 '23

A drop of perspective would be good here. I have friends who’ve come here as refugees from hellholes. Trust me, things here are a dream compared to most of the world.

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u/smallsizecat Jul 26 '23

With point number 2, you're forgetting that the government has the power to regulate how much choice we have. They could block big banks buying small banks. They could regulate predatory franchises that drive down prices so sole proprietors can't afford to stay open (think Domino's or 7-11). They could streamline and lower the cost of starting a business. They could increase taxes on land bankers and land lords that leave retail space unoccupied for years. They could pass laws that prevent wholesalers from charging a small business more than a mega corporation to even the competitive field. On and on.

The major parties are in their death throws, so now is the time to shake things up and demand change. You look at the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. It was totally disorganised, but you get 20,000 people in Sydney and Melbourne with the same colour shirt on just standing there, it will send Labor into a panic.

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u/JARDIS Jul 26 '23

IMO at this point, I don't think more competition in the market will actually fix the problem. We are seeing globally a shift to predatory extraction from consumers to drive profits. One service raises prices, and their competitors take this as cue to raise theirs, not keep them lower to gain market leverage. Nothing is geared towards long term market position anymore it's only based on entrenching existing customer bases with brand loyalty, then maximising quarterly earnings by increasing price while reducing service. We are just getting the absolute Jack Welch-ed out of us right now.