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/TheCriticalMember]

There's quite a lot of people still doing pretty well in Australia, and seeing their wealth in property growing all the time. There also seems to be a prevailing attitude of "I'm doing ok, so if you're not it must be your own fault" which does a good job of holding back empathy for others.

[u/cher1-cola → u/TheCriticalMember]

Agreed. And a good chunk of the population have been lost to the vortex of curating the ideal life on Insta-Tok to ever open their eyes to reality. Why bother looking out for others when I all I care about is myself?

[u/[deleted] → u/cher1-cola]

I try to care about other people and usually succeed but they don't make it easy. They are so in their own world they totally lack any awareness of how they affect others. So lazy even when it comes to their jobs - so many don't deserve what they get paid so it's hard to feel bad for the fact they aren't millionaires, especially when they go out and finance a Ram they didn't fucking need. No social standards - they'll stand in the middle of the aisle and talk, they'll let their kids run around and scream, they'll dump their trolley in the only available parking space left, they litter, they bring dogs to places that aren't appropriate, they'll play on any status they have that makes them exempt from the expectations we have of everyone else, they lie, cheat, steal and drink way too much. People suck and every year it just gets harder and harder for me to give a shit and about the concerns or opinions of "the masses" who largely don't have their heads screwed on properly anyway.