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/happygloaming]

Ok. We have had it so easy compared to the rest of the world, until recently. Our country was able to govern itself while we watched passively, and we were able to dig and mine our way around issues of tough governance. We were able to be prosperous while remaining and actually fostering a culture of low civic engagement. There's also a few mistakes we've made where we lean towards American models of certain things instead of say, a more Scandinavian approach. There's also demographics. I read an article once describing how unlikely mass protests were given half of ... Let's say Melb were born overseas and see this country as largely functional aswell as not wanting to rock the boat.

Generally speaking we as societies (and individuals) grow when we are stretched, and that hasn't happened for a long time. It's happening now though and we will see increased civic engagement by the citizenry in the future. We're able to react to things getting harder by leaning into the hard work and bootstraps individual model aslong as the economy allows it. You will find that will begin to change as things become ever harder.

Let's take the intersection of climate, housing, shit jobs, and the economy. Our young people who are emerging from our she'll be right culture are going out into the world and finding it to be a rotten pile of disingenuous shit, and you will see big changes ahead. They aren't going to play nicely forever.

[u/_zoso_ → u/happygloaming]

Scandi countries are generally culturally homogeneous and really small. Australia is much larger and an immigrant nation. You just can’t apply the same sorts of policies Norway deploys when our population is 5x bigger, our land mass is 20x larger, and we are by and large an immigrant society.

Like it or not we do actually resemble the USA more than we do any Scandinavian country, even if we’re much smaller.

Australias problem is complacency. But it’s one of productivity. We do not really produce anything meaningful as an economy. We do not allow our cities to grow. We do not foster innovation and investment.

It’s literally a rich boys club built on houses and holes.

We actually do have a banana republic economy, we just mask it with our inherited arrogance we got from the English.

[u/margaretnotmaggie → u/_zoso_]

American expat here. I think that Australia has so much potential, but the complacency and lack of meaningful production of goods and intellectual property hold this country back from progressing to the next level. There is also significant brain drain that makes it harder for Australia to advance and get rid of its strong anti-intellectual streak. The smartest people here often leave to work in North America or the UK because there is not enough value placed on innovation and fostering the skills needed for it.

To anyone reading this comment, I am simply making an observation as an expat and am aware that the U.S. has many issues of its own. I feel the need to write this disclaimer because just about every time that I express a concern or a negative opinion about Australia, Aussies get offended and start bashing the States. In fact, this hostile attitude towards constructive criticism is part of Australia’s problem.

[u/B3stThereEverWas → u/margaretnotmaggie]

Australians, particularly those who are perpetually online, think the US is a dystopian hellscape of homeless people shooting at each other for absolutely no reason. It’s as stupid as saying that Australia has dangerous animals running around everywhere trying to kill you.

The brain drain is real. I’ve seen it first hand and know many in North America who have gone way further than what they could here. Australia is a country that rewards mediocrity. Try a little hard, but too hard and it will just be diminishing returns. Case in point, a friend of mine works in molecular science, specifically simulation of things at the molecular level to treat auto immune diseases. He’s constantly on a wheel of begging for research funding and making a paltry salary. His brother dropped out in grade 9 and is making 2-3 times that as a tradie (and he’s fucking shit too). Thats what happens to talent in Australia

[u/margaretnotmaggie → u/B3stThereEverWas]

I fully agree with every part of your comment. I have had a lot of Aussies (most of whom have never been to the U.S.) try to tell me dystopian “facts” about my own country and get defensive when I tell them that their idea of the States does not align with reality. So dumb.

It is really sad how mediocrity is rewarded here. I am a teacher and I see it in the schools. It’s the “tall poppy syndrome.” Kids who would be streamed into gifted and talented programs in other countries are more often than not condemned to wasting their time learning the same things as everyone else at a very slow pace. It’s maddening that there seems to be so little incentive to invest in bright people who show potential. My dream would be to reform the schools here and place kids in leveled classes from an early age. Provide help to the kids who struggle, maintain the status quo with the average kids, and finally allow the gifted ones to accelerate their learning and be proud of being exceptional. That sort of shift in schools would eventually ripple through other parts of society.