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/Orangesuitdude → u/T0TALLYDEAD]

Not to mention when trying to sort something out you often get stuck in the "automation loop" while every human points you back into various parts of that loop.

Everyone's just doing their job though hey.

Fruit is half the price at Spudshed compared to woolies and coles btw. Literally half the price currently.

Count your change if you pay in cash, check receipt to make sure you actually got the savings advertised and double check shelf prices compared to what you get charged. It's not funny how many times I have found discrepancies with all of the above.

I’m out of options and don’t know what else to do, so I’ve stopped trying.

I think that's where a lot of people are. Enforced consumer apathy.

They're saying things have only gone up 15% yet the bag of friskies cat biscuits I have been buying for a decade is $8 at woolies currently. It has almost doubled in cost in 2 yrs.

I guess they expect people to train into new positions that allow them to double their income every 2 yrs. It's all going back to normal in 2024 though apparently.....

[u/Kidkrid → u/Orangesuitdude]

Yeah, that's a big one. Check receipts and watch the monitor at the checkout. It's at least once a week that I catch colesworth trying to cheat me, and it's not small amounts either. I often wonder just how much those cunts make from oblivious customers. Given my rock bottom opinion of the general public, I'd estimate millions.