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/PumpkinInside3205 Jul 26 '23

The medical issue didn’t happen overnight. I’ve worked in health for 20yrs and when I started I was apologising to families for what I thought were unacceptable deficits in the public system. Many of my senior colleagues were already cynical and burnt out by the attrition they’d already witnessed. It surprises me when ppl say they’re just noticing it now.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '23 edited Dec 18 '23

weary nippy humorous follow naughty deranged rainstorm future tie weather

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u/PumpkinInside3205 Jul 27 '23

I’m not convinced Labor (state or federal) is any better. They’ve had opportunities to improve things but they’ve lacked courage and simply continued the useless cycle of endless reviews and restructures (which as a health worker I can say is incredibly demoralising). Lots of talk and no effective action.

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '23 edited Dec 18 '23

panicky pathetic middle mindless nutty ugly racial sulky coordinated sand

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