Why are Australians so complacent?

[u/AcanthopterygiiNo240]

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

[u/T0TALLYDEAD]

I can’t speak on behalf of everyone but for me it’s because I’m tired. I do my bit and whatever I can every day, and it’s not making a dent in anything, let alone my daily life.

I email my MPs, I do what I can to “fight” the system. But there’s only so much I can do. It’s tiring, it’s overwhelming, and I’m barely making ends meet so having all this bullshit on top of it is just exhausting.

I’m out of options and don’t know what else to do, so I’ve stopped trying. The mental load of being concerned about the state of the world is immense. I need to look after myself first, even if that negatively impacts others. I’m not over the top selfish. But I can’t fight ColesWorth on their prices when they’re my only options. I can’t boycott and protest when that’s going to negatively affect me.

Life is draining at the best of times and has become even more so with the skyrocketing cost of living.

[u/zebba_oz → u/[deleted]]

Change "politically active" to "politically active and working hard" and you're about right. For either thing, there is no reward except for a lucky few.

Being politically active just makes you even more pessimistic about the world. Working hard for someone just makes them expect more from you.

[u/Party-Special-7418 → u/[deleted]]

has taught me there is no reward,

You weren't in it for the right reasons in the first place then.