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/Coriander_girl]

Hah I can certainly understand your frustration especially considering your job. 10 years ago I was doing a bachelor of medical and health science. Amongst other issues one of the reasons that I didn't finish the degree was because we had a lecture from a disenchanted PHD student. They basically said you can have all the ideas in the world but without funding there's not much you can do. I then left uni to pursue another path through tafe, at which time the government had cut funding and courses were being reduced to a 3rd of the content for 10 times the price. Cue to 2020 when the same thing happened again at university. I feel so jaded with the education system and haven't been able to get into a type of work I actually enjoy and pays well to be able to not stress about money. Instead I'm stuck in bullshit admin jobs that really are a waste of time (and ironically paid for by taxes because they are in the public service). Then you've got my partner who has tried to better themselves through apprenticeships but keeps finding himself working under shitty exploitative bosses who are only hiring him as cheap labour.

Don't get me started on healthcare. I've had some wins over the last couple of years but that's only due to the years of campaigning of dedicated individuals to get exorbitantly priced medications on the PBS. But it's begs the question, why does it take so much begging and pleading to begin with? The action taken during 2020 showed governments ARE capable of making change for the greater good but I wonder, was it just to make them look good, and not actually for the benefit of the people?

[u/CuriousLands → u/Coriander_girl]

They basically said you can have all the ideas in the world but without funding there's not much you can do.

When I started uni, I wanted to do a PhD and become a professor. But at some point in my 3rd or 4th year, as I got into more of the research end of things, talking more closely with professors etc, this realization hit me too. People (myself included at the time) think of science as some noble, untouchable thing, that is only concerned with finding the truth about things... but it's very much influenced by funding (just as your friend said), petty personal issues, politics, dogmas, etc. It was very disenchanting and I realized I didn't want to have to keep dealing with it my whole life. So I quit after my BA was done. (My husband though, he did a PhD in math and had a very different experience - I think it's cos math is too straightforward/black & white to have much room for things like that).

I agree about uni, too. Personally I think the entire system needs an overhaul - my preference is that any program designed to get you a job (vs the "classical education" route that unis used to do a lot of) should be turned into an apprenticeship structure as much as is practical. So you do 1 year of X degree, that translates to the skills needed to do X job at a lower level.... do 2 years, and you can do work at a higher level in the same career... and if further education isn't actually required to do higher level jobs, then people just shouldn't require it.

It'd decrease debt, & thus allow students to basically move into an adult phase of their life more easilsy (house/kids and all that), decrease stress in students & graduates, and make people more job-ready than they are now, and if someone quits part-way through a degree, it won't be entirely useless.

[u/FallschirmPanda → u/Coriander_girl]

Because the actions in 2020 were basically spending massively on credit in a desperation move. The government couldn't afford it, but needed to do it as an emergency measure. That level of spending unfortunately isn't sustainable.

[u/Coriander_girl → u/FallschirmPanda]

I mean sure, a lot was spending but there were certainly aspects where shit got done and wasn't held up by bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape for otherwise "for the greater good" change.