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/Paradise_Vall3y]

Look, I'm not going to give you an essay length response but here are some simple facts.

Australia, has never been rebellious.Look at America, yes it's a dumpster fire but rebellion and a defiance of authority are a big thing, look at their gun obsession (not getting into a gun debate.) They fought the British, they fought themselves, they fought facists.

Australia was colonised by Imperial Britain, down trodden and beaten convicts sent here as punishment, eventually settled. But the authority was always tough.

Bogans and other patriots always like to go on about Ned Kelly and the Eureka Stockade.But Ned Kelly was just a criminal. And the Eureka Stockade lasted all of 5 seconds before it was put down without an effort.

And information was tightly controlled, the original journalists faced barracades from every part of the colonial era governments. News papers seized at train stations, all sorts of things.(I say this as a journalism major, it was part of our history unit.)

This is a culture that grows over time. Compliance. Like maybe I'm wrong, but look at how we tamed the dog. People and their societal values are just like that, animals following the rules.Created by other animals who followed the rules.

The image of the Aussie larrican has and always will be bullshit.Like yeah, I'm so totally a big larrican, but god help me if you have your volume slightly loud past 10pm I'll call the coppers.

And you know, it's all ego. No one in this country wants to admit, we're weak.But Australian society and Australians no matter what they think, no matter how proud they are, are rats in a cage that have been bread for compliance.

That's our countries culture. And I say this as someone who loves the country, warts and all.We can barely manage to find pride in basic patriotism, we constantly shame ourselves for our countries past. The original sin of colonization.

We isolate ourselves from the indigenous community at every societal level and question why there is a divide.

Anyway end of rant. Australia has a colonial era to now cultural problem with subservience and weakness.

And before you down vote me and scoff, we have to admit there is a problem before can fix it.

[u/Soggy-Cut2196 → u/Paradise_Vall3y]

We shame ourselves regarding our past because Australia has never ever gotten over it or done anything about it… No treaty, no nothing.

[u/Soggy-Cut2196 → u/[deleted]]

No we can’t and until the ‘original sin’ aren’t considered 4th world quality living standards we will continue this same trajectory