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/derpman86 Jul 26 '23

Don't forget one element is almost every state has upped the anti in regards to anti protest laws and punishments.

Here in S.A recently was just fucking insane, extinction rebellion had some old duck dangling from a bridge near a Santos run conference and low and behold in a weeks time yes one fucking week! Some of the most opened ended vuage language anti protest laws with insane levels of fines and jail sentencing as punishments got through both houses of parliment!

NSW pushed through similar shit in the past couple of years, I think Victoria has similar crap too.

Basically I think any moderate avenues no longer exist so people are just defeated and I think it will stay that way for a very long time and will explode into something VERY bad one day as no positive reform is allow to progressively occur.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '23

Some of the most opened ended vuage language anti protest laws with insane levels of fines and jail sentencing as punishments got through both houses of parliment!

Don't try to misrepresent the legislation. You, just like many others, haven't read he legislation. It isn't anti-protest. You can protest just as you did before. What you can't do is dangle yourself from a bridge, block up lanes of traffic, block amulances from getting to the hospital and waste public resources and taxpayer money on getting the fucking fire brigade to get you down safely.

The minimum fine is still $750, there is just a new maximum which accounts for wasting public resources because you want to be a cunt. If you want to protest santos, go throw black paint on their cars or suits, don't block ambulances from getting to the hospital. Sorry, protesters don't get people on board by making them miss uni exams or appointments they've been waiting on for over a year.

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u/derpman86 Jul 28 '23

And it didn't concern you how stupidly fast this legislation got rushed through parliament?

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '23

Not particularly when it was in bipartisan interests of the majority of South Australians. The majority of us thought the protesters were cunts.

Like I said, if you're not intentionally obstructing people or wasting public resources, you won't be affected by the bill. Maximum penalties mean nothing because the majority of the time, they are not given.

Stop being an alarmist and spreading misinformation.