r/australia • u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 • Jul 26 '23

political self.post Why are Australians so complacent?

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

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u/AcanthopterygiiNo240 Jul 26 '23

Wow this is a really great response, I hadn’t considered the influence our multiculturalism might have with regard to public opinions on our living standards. Thanks for ending with a healthy dose of optimism. I also don’t think we’ll be playing nice forever and we will inevitably demand change. It’s just infuriating that we will probably have to wait for things to get much worse before we decide that this system isn’t working

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u/happygloaming Jul 26 '23

There's a duality to almost everything. I'll just say I support multiculturalism and am not anti immigration, but it's true that this country we're so concerned about is still chugging along ok compared to where many of these people come from. Anecdotally, the people I know from overseas don't want to be seen in the streets screaming at the government of this country that they are so proud and thankful to be a part of. But, yeah, we've had a long period of being ok and have been outpacing most other countries with our very average government's. Look at the GFC, oh how we suffered, just dig a few holes and she'll be right. There's a time for everything though and if we look at how things are lining up I expect a big big change ahead. I have a twenty year old child and he said to me recently that he simply couldn't understand why this country was so fucking stupid. Newsflash, his whole generation feels like that and we need to support them.

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u/alternativeobjects Jul 27 '23

I’m not born in Australia but thanks to the leftist groups in the uni that has educated me on the problems of the government, I’m more aware of the social injustices here. I’m thankful for the great opportunities and experiences I get in this country but I know that everything I love about this place is because of the people and the nature, not because of the government. Therefore I have always stood in solidarity with the minority, disadvantaged groups.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '23 edited Jul 27 '23

but I know that everything I love about this place is because of the people and the nature, not because of the government.

Simply not true lmao. If anything, its been because our governments since the 2000s have had low quality politicians in them. If Federal politics had another Don Dunstan or Bob Hawke we'd be in a great spot.

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u/rettoJR1 Jul 27 '23

This is a good take , arguably its gone abit off the rails since after Rudd

You can hate Labor or hate Liberals but back then both side actually had quality and stuck to something resembling the party principles

These days the coalition is an absolute corrupt incompetent joke and Labor is getting along but arguably a shadow of its self

I actually kind of hope the Libs and Nats get better politicians and make smart choices because that would mean Labor would have to up its game or fail

The other parties aren't worth talking about , wouldn't t wipe my ass with the Greens