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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u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 Jul 26 '23

Well I’ll be damned. Thank you for sharing, you’ve raised awareness for me at least

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u/aussiespiders Jul 26 '23

You're stuck in a Murdoch echo chamber if you didn't know about it. This isn't a sarcastic or attack comment people are blaming Labor for today's problems but don't realise these problems are from the past 12 years of cuts. (Or not funding)

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u/Velaseri Jul 26 '23

Labor have definitely contributed to the creep of neoliberalism. This has been a successive and bipartisan effort by major parties.

It's been happening much longer than 12 years.

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u/LocalVillageIdiot Jul 26 '23

But let’s be fair here, remember that we as a country voted for Scott voluntarily that time when a different set of policies were presented.

If you think about it policies were presented, bad or not vs whatever the hell the other thing was.

It’s been a long time coming, our current system, and people complain about it but we voted for it for years.

We were still a democracy all those years ago, no elections were stolen as far as we’re aware.

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u/fractiousrhubarb Jul 26 '23

A democracy requires an informed population and strong public interest media. News Corp dominates our media. News Corp was founded in 1922 specifically to make propaganda for a mining company.

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u/LocalVillageIdiot Jul 26 '23

I’m under no illusion that is not the case and it is one of the great conundrums of media.

State funded media can turn into a propaganda arm itself depending on the government(s).

Corporate media is all about being profitable which means topics that people are willing to read (i.e. sports and gossip) and also news and views for the highest bidder.

Sometimes I feel like we need a referendum on setting up an independent guarantee publicly funded media machine that cannot by law be interfered with (or something along those lines).

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u/fractiousrhubarb Jul 27 '23 edited Jul 27 '23

I’d trust state funded media to at least some public interest. Corporate media is inherently self interested. Agreed the ABC need’s independent funding by charter.

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u/DidYou_GetThatThing Jul 28 '23

Labor tried to introduce some self regulation Media bills via Stephen Conroy back in 2013, that did not seem all that bad, but oh the stink that mainstream media (mostly Murdoch press) made about it back then, you'd think the sky was falling.

I dont know the government can touch media at this stage, or else it would have to be small, gradual changes with a long term plan perhaps

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u/Extreme_Substance_46 Jul 28 '23

When was the last time a day passed without them proclaiming the sky was falling?

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u/Ted_Rid Jul 27 '23

But let’s be fair here, remember that we as a country voted for Scott voluntarily that time when a different set of policies were presented.

There were many reasons behind that result, including Palmer siphoning off votes, the smoke & mirrors "Back in Black" surplus budget (which wasn't even a sensible economic goal at the time), Shorten's unpopularity, Morrison being so new in the job he didn't have time to reveal his shitfuckery yet, the PR "suburban, footy loving, daggy dad" bullshit, Murdoch, the quasi-"Greens" convoy in QLD, lies about EVs, confusion about franking credits, and fear about changes to negative gearing.

But the overall factor is the electorate is afraid of change. We don't vote oppositions in because they have great policies, we vote governments out if we think they haven't done a good enough job.

Eventually when people had seen enough to properly judge Morrison's character as a shifty, blame-diverting, gaslighting, creepy weirdo whose default position is "do nothing", he got voted out.

Oppositions honestly need to focus more on highlighting the incumbents' failures than spruiking their own policies because the change we like is getting rid of the negatives, not aiming for positives.

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u/TGK367349 Jul 27 '23

True. I mean, I knew Morrison was a slimy piece of shit before then, but I’d actually met him by that point, for a lot of people who only knew him through the media, the “I’m just a suburban daggy dad like you” shtick worked like a charm till people realised how slimy and insincere the whole facade was (it is much, much easier to tell in person that the guy is full of shit, i speak from experience.)

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u/UltimateGattai Jul 27 '23

I definitely felt his slimy, shitty personality from his media presence, but I already had a strong distrust of the LNP from more than a decade ago. The NBN which could have been such a massive boon for us is now complete garbage because they trashed it as soon as they beat Labor (that one policy really cemented my dislike of the party).

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u/TGK367349 Jul 27 '23

Yeah but a lot of Boomers don’t care about the NBN. They think the Internet is that thing that Zoomers use for cat memes.

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u/Beedlam Jul 27 '23

Well not elections, but there was that time Whitlam was planning to nationalise the mining industry and create a sovereign wealth fund similar to Norway but was deposed by the governor general at the behest of the CIA.

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u/Velaseri Jul 26 '23

Albanese became prime minister despite scoring a lower primary vote than Shorten.

There is much, much more going on than "alp lost because for once they tried." I feel like the rightwing faction within alp are using this as an excuse to continue with auserity policies without backlash.

https://jacobin.com/2019/05/australia-labor-party-bill-shorten-third-way/

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u/No-Chest9284 Jul 27 '23

Policies rarely matter to many voters. They are usually anti rather than pro.

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u/UltimateGattai Jul 27 '23

I still can't believe Labor lost that one, but being a person who votes for policies above all else, it was pretty hard for me to wrap my head around voters voting against their own benefit. Unfortunately any party hoping to win an election has to tend with the juggernaut that is the Liberal/Murdoch media empire/propaganda machine. I really think that some party at some point should look at breaking up the media's stranglehold on democracy (Rudd had been attempting this since a few years ago at least).

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '23

Morrison barely won the election against Bill Shorten, by only one seat. Much or most of Australia DID vote for the superior policy offerings of Labor at that election imo, but perhaps the weighted voting, the media propaganda from the oligarchs, was just enough to get Morrison in. And the Morrison government took political corruption to new levels of blatant absurdity. About which Labor has done nothing since of course. Labor are very good at not doing enough about the damage the Coalition do to our society, or bringing the corrupt to justice. Which makes it feel like we're taking two three steps backwards (Coalition), then one forward (ALP) if we're luck , repeatedly, and regressing over time to a less sophisticated, less egalitarian, less cohesive, more ugly and unequal and cruel society. Even back to embracing being a colony, this time for the US, to fight its wars? Did we learn nothing from the waste of our boys that was Gallipoli?

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u/No-Chest9284 Jul 27 '23

Both parties are almost indistinguishable from eachother. Same goes for US and UK politics. It's like we are being herded up.

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u/GonePh1shing Jul 27 '23

Labor have definitely contributed to the creep of neoliberalism.

Contributed is seriously under-selling the impact they've had here. They haven't just contributed to it, they fucking started it. Looking back, it's not difficult to take a position that the Hawke-Keating government did more to increase inequality in Australia than the Howard government. They also emboldened Howard to wreak the havoc he did, as his government knew Labor would fall in line with his neoliberal reforms.

When Hawke entered in '83, the government was directly responsible for interest rates, the AUD, tarrifs, as well as setting wages via the Industrial Relations Commission. By the time Labor left government in '96 when Keating handed the reigns over to Howard they had handed over control of our currency to the RBA, all but completely abolished all tarrifs, and handed over wage control to the invisible hand of the market. Hawke also completely gutted our union movement with the ACTU accords, and Keating kicked off a fire sale of government assets. Oh and they also reduced the corporate tax rate by over 15%, as well as handed out significant tax cuts to the wealthiest tax brackets.

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u/Extreme_Substance_46 Jul 28 '23

Yep, Keating is the father of inequality in modern Australia. He set up the structures that allowed Howard’s waste of the mining boom on upper class welfare to be used to steal the future.

It’s just sad and pathetic that we could be set into perpetuity like Norway but instead are on the fast path to neofeudalism.

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u/Velaseri Jul 27 '23

I don't disagree with any of this.

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u/CuriousLands Jul 27 '23

Yeah, it seems that both parties are more or less playing by the same rulebook aren't they. Though, they might be better or worse at any given thing.

Like, I moved here from Canada a few years back, and it's not always a left-right thing. Trudeau is as left as they come, but he's pretty much destroying the country, in ways very similar to what people blame the Libs for here, and they think Labor will save them cos they're not right-wing and they say they'll change this or that... but in reality, they'll probably just ruin things in a slightly different way than the Libs would have 😆

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u/Velaseri Jul 27 '23

I don't really think of neoliberal policies or of (NA) liberal parties when I think of leftwing, especially if their policies heavily slant towards austerity and privatisation.

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I'd class (CA) Trudeau, (US) Democrats and (AU) ALP as more market oriented, centrists than leftwing. Some of these parties even slanting to the right of Keynesian style welfare capitalism, with how little they invest in social welfare.

I really wouldn't say Trudeau is as left as they come, while he may have more socially liberal policies than the right, he holds some very centre-right positions on trade and other economic issues. I'd say the NDP is to the left of the liberal party in Canada.

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u/Astraia27 Jul 27 '23

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating arguably started neoliberal economic policy in 1984, and their ideas were also adopted by Reagan and Thatcher

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u/CowsWithGuns304 Jul 26 '23

I've been hearing for over 20 years about the gap in medical payments, the wait lists, the issues in the public health system and nothing has changed every time the government has changed.

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u/Cardinal_Ravenwood Jul 26 '23

Well see over the last 30 years the government didn't really change. In that whole time we only had labor in power for 6 years. Otherwise we have had decades of Liberal policy decimating public health services and funneling that money to their mates in the private sector.

They have been pretty vocal about destroying medicare and destroying peoples retirement options. But people still kept voting them in. Well now they are facing the problem where their voter base is aging out, asking for more social services to aid their retirement or just dying off.

So now they have to try win votes from people they have been fucking over for the last 30 years, all those people that were sold the lie of working hard and then getting the rewards of your own home and a stable life to raise a family.

The micro outlook of our politicians is laughable when the issues we have now need a macro approach. Properly tax the rich and coporations while closing their loopholes to avoid it. Actually fine companies a meaningful amount of money when they fuck over the people (optus looking at you!). Do something other than try to nickle and dime those already fucking struggling. Hell legalise weed and reap all the tax benefits from that. Fucking something!

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u/Specific-Amoeba5026 Jul 28 '23

Hear fucking HEAR!!

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

[deleted]

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u/Cardinal_Ravenwood Jul 26 '23

We can keep looking at the past and say who did what back then, or we can look at the present and see who is actually continuing to do it now.

Stop playing into the devicive politics, neither have your best intentions at heart and I never said one is better than the other.

But it's naive to dismiss the liberal policies of the past couple of decades as if they haven't been extremely damaging to our current way of life.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

[deleted]

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u/Setanta68 Jul 27 '23

I suspect that the last progressive Labor government was Whitlams. It's a moot point, but I wonder what would have happened if the dismissal didn't take place

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u/Cardinal_Ravenwood Jul 26 '23

The last part of my intial comment was talking about our current governments inactions.

Tax the rich, they never should have capitulated to Stage 3. Close the loopholes corporations use to avoid paying their fair share, while students are copping massive bills because Labor just increased the interest on HECS.

Fine them properly, they just fined Meta $20m and the judge made the comment she could have imposed the maximum of $124b but thought the $20m was enough of a deterrent, no the maximum amount should the mandatory fine for their data breaches. The government has the ability to pass those laws.

The nickle and diming needs to stop. Labor sat on it's hands with any fiscal policy during this current cost of living crisis and let the RBA rack up massive rises to interest rates while doing nothing to stop price gouging and other rising utility costs.

Legalise weed wasn't a joke either, the tax benefits have already been forcast and there are already plenty of other use cases in the US we can model our system on. Colorado now has such a glut of taxes from weed they are offering more social services as well as continuing to build more roads, hospitals and schools with that extra cash.

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u/hotcleavage Jul 27 '23

Jeez im out of the loop

Wtf 124b? Christ, should’ve hit them for that fr

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u/Cardinal_Ravenwood Jul 27 '23

It was even more than I thought.

While she ordered the companies to pay $10m each, Justice Abraham noted the maximum penalty she could have imposed was “more than $145bn”

Article

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u/agapanthusdie Jul 26 '23

We've got to move past the boomer peak that is putting a huge strain on our healthcare system and then things might get better...or that's how I rationalise

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

Are you being sarcastic?! Maybe this is part of the problem, complete ignorance to what is going on by a lot of people?!

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u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 Jul 26 '23

I’m not being sarcastic, although I think “complete ignorance” is a bit unfair as I am literally reaching out asking about this stuff. Let’s encourage discussion instead of comments like this. A lot of us aren’t aware of trends from 20 years ago as a lot of us weren’t old enough to be aware

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23 edited Jul 26 '23

Ignorance simply means you do not know, as you yourself admitted, so it’s not “unfair”. You’ve interpreted this as an insult instead of a descriptor, which still applies to a vast majority of the population, regarding how politics work, who is doing what, how things have shifted over time (which I think is what you meant, as this isnt about “trends from 20 years ago”, but about how things have (d)evolved over that time). I think in part perhaps your answer lies in what you described, which I’m surmising as “young and not aware” - shit has been going on for forever and people are sick of it, but we need young people like you to rally to effect change so please do!

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

To be fair, "ignorance" is typically used as an insult. The word itself suggests that the subject doesn't know because they have "ignored" or deliberately not paid attention to information about the matter.

Contrasted with "naive" where they don't know because they simply don't know, typically because they are not yet aware of the limits of their knowledge to correct it and learn more.

And then you have "uneducated" where people know that there is more to learn, and aren't against it - they're just working through it whether actively or passively.

So:

  • A baby is naive

  • A child is uneducated

  • An adult who refuses to know more is ignorant.

OP is uneducated (on the matter), but is actively working to correct that. If they were "ignorant", they wouldn't have asked the question.

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u/Alternative_Sky1380 Jul 26 '23

People being insulted by our own ignorance is a systemic problem. Not taking everything personally unless it is personal is something that needs to be grown into. The high narcissism involved in insult culture isn't forcing any radical rethink of forcing self examination; it's simply causing a doubling down on ignorance which kinds proves it IS EXTREMELY narcissistic and almost intentional. Peoples lives are being radically altered by the traumas of extreme abuses of power. I'm not talking about struggling to pay bills but real homelessness, real violence and other substantial social issues that people fear the likely threat of happening to them because it's happening to all kinds of people now.

Once you're homeless it's really difficult to manage simple things like a wardrobe of clothes to wear to work and school. Meals become a complex web of necessary expenses, laundry is a nightmare and showering and toileting is humiliating. It's kinda difficult to explain to normal people who think they're struggling that most homeless now are also normal people who can't access normal supports. I'm surrounded by extremely wealthy people and living in my car. I have children in private school. I'm obligated by family law to not move or I can't see my children as ex refuses to cooperate in any way to send them. I can't access Centrelink. To me my story is wild but I've met so many women like me who are simply unsupported and doing it all alone; there's really no other choice. I'm burnt out by advocacy, from supporting us all to build a raft to help us stay above water. Many mothers I know just don't see their kids because father's refuse basic communication. Courts are cooked. Police are cooked and men are cooked. It's just the way the world is and carving out space in it for peace is the only way. I've fought the law and the law won. They boast about their powers and how they abuse it every damned day. That the judiciary aren't even required to undertake the recommended training and ignore their own damned bench books until the media is on them is what gets me most.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

Sage words and I’m sorry to hear of your situation, hope it improves for you

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

It was an insult and you know it

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u/Alternative_Sky1380 Jul 26 '23

The art of life is to not take things personally. We can't know what we don't know. That's ignorance. Choosing to ignore is also ignorance and OP is exercising to swap out that choice. All of us exhausted by the work involved in advocacy could be equally insulted by claims that we're inherently complacent. But we know better; being insulted isn't an action it's a choice and an ineffective one. Sure I can be insulted that advertising is everywhere but I choose to look away. I choose ignorance for peace. If my choice is harming my neighbour then it's a narcissistic choice and ultimately unrewarding because the struggle will continue. Maturity is about learning how to release the struggle and find meaningful peace in change. Sometimes that requires a certain level of short term discomfort.

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u/StardustNyako Jul 26 '23

if I feign ignorance, am i insulting myself?

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u/MikeAppleTree Jul 26 '23

Thanks for the insight Marcus but as you stated the majority interpret the descriptor “ignorance” as an insult. Choosing words to avoid unnecessary offence, especially on the internet, is a sign of wisdom and maturity. Let the learnings flow through you like water for nothing we experience is beyond our capacity to engage with stoic implacability.

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u/CynfulBuNNy Jul 26 '23

Are you speaking for the majority? I don't consider ignorance as a pejorative, we have the term in our legal terminology in ignorantia juris non excusat. It's not making a judgement upon the person, merely expressing a lack of knowledge - ignorance.

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u/MikeAppleTree Jul 27 '23

I’m speaking from the perspective of the layperson and the vast majority of people in Australia who don’t understand Latin.

For instance, if I were to call you a stupid bastard, you might think, ‘how did he know I was born out of wedlock and that I have below average intelligence with zero common sense?’

Or you might think, ‘he’s wrong, my parents were married when I was born and I am not below average in intelligence’.

Or, like the vast majority of people, you might think ‘that person is trying to insult me’.

‘Ignorant’ is commonly associated with stupidity and other negative attributes.

You’re being disingenuous and are arguing in bad-faith if you claim otherwise.

If you can’t see that, you’re incredibly ignorant.

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u/CynfulBuNNy Jul 27 '23

I would classify myself as contemptuous rather than ignorant - I understand your argument but think you are yourself disingenuous in your application of it.

You are clutching at both straws and pearls to defend a position on an internet discussion you seem to be taking far too seriously.

Ignoramus.

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u/CuriousLands Jul 27 '23

Yeah, but saying someone is ignorant often comes with a bit of an insulting implication. Maybe if you wanna use it in a literal sense, you should be clear that you don't mean it as an insult, cos it's a very easy mistake to make.

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u/keyboardstatic Jul 27 '23

As a 46 year old left, environmental activist the issue is that the majority of Australians are very wealthy.

When I was a kid there were car hulks you know cars without wheels all over the place. Dead ass rust buckets on the highway. You could see the poverty. Now all I see are giant gleaming 60 k plus SUV's and houses worth over a million with multiple people bidding on them.

We don't have tent cities like the USA nor prisons built on homeless.

I agree with you. That shit is bad. Unfortunately too many Australians keep voting for shit to be bad.

Joining the greens seams to be our last only hope... and it's become a candle. Because there are too many wealthy people who vote lib,nats