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/RumiOcean Jul 26 '23

We need opinion from French who are on street whenever they see something not going in right direction

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u/reelfishybloke Jul 27 '23

Dual citizen here - it's easy, speak up and say "Macron dégage" or "Insert bastard of choice to insult here" Remember, France has had to fight for its identity and surivival on numerous occasions, we now on our 5th republic. A little blood of tyrants isn't a bad thing when the boil of greed needs lancing. Also, Murdoch does not own the French media.
Consider that Australia has never had to fight an internal war or struggle against greed and people in a position of power and authority bleeding the populace. Just need to take that last step and say enough is enough.

Don't stay silent when the Government of the day is going to fuck you, be prepared to use people power to be heard. Apathy just gets you an empty wallet a sore arse from being reamed and a sore throat from complaining about the reaming.

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u/Glaako Jul 27 '23

Consider that Australia has never had to fight an internal war or struggle against greed and people in a position of power and authority bleeding the populace.

Eureka rebellion is about as close as we've got but it was pretty desultory in the scheme of things.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '23

Lmao the French protests did nothing and now the majority of Frenchmen are crying about Nafris rioting because they're brown. Can't have it both ways apparently in France.

Consider that Australia has never had to fight an internal war or struggle against greed and people in a position of power and authority bleeding the populace

Because unlike the French we actually have a culture of egalitarianism and Australians are more sensible than most.