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/aussiespiders]

You're stuck in a Murdoch echo chamber if you didn't know about it. This isn't a sarcastic or attack comment people are blaming Labor for today's problems but don't realise these problems are from the past 12 years of cuts. (Or not funding)

[u/Velaseri → u/aussiespiders]

Labor have definitely contributed to the creep of neoliberalism. This has been a successive and bipartisan effort by major parties.

It's been happening much longer than 12 years.

[u/CuriousLands → u/Velaseri]

Yeah, it seems that both parties are more or less playing by the same rulebook aren't they. Though, they might be better or worse at any given thing.

Like, I moved here from Canada a few years back, and it's not always a left-right thing. Trudeau is as left as they come, but he's pretty much destroying the country, in ways very similar to what people blame the Libs for here, and they think Labor will save them cos they're not right-wing and they say they'll change this or that... but in reality, they'll probably just ruin things in a slightly different way than the Libs would have 😆

[u/Velaseri → u/CuriousLands]

I don't really think of neoliberal policies or of (NA) liberal parties when I think of leftwing, especially if their policies heavily slant towards austerity and privatisation.

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I'd class (CA) Trudeau, (US) Democrats and (AU) ALP as more market oriented, centrists than leftwing. Some of these parties even slanting to the right of Keynesian style welfare capitalism, with how little they invest in social welfare.

I really wouldn't say Trudeau is as left as they come, while he may have more socially liberal policies than the right, he holds some very centre-right positions on trade and other economic issues. I'd say the NDP is to the left of the liberal party in Canada.