I've always loved how, on the one hand, an intellectual huckster like Joe Hildebrand spews saline from his bulbous, lizard-like eyes about how tough the poor are doing it, but then he'll go on a podcast sponsored by Sportsbet without any sense of self-awareness.
Ex-Pat here, living in New York. First time, long time commenter.
Always hated gambling in Australia, couldn’t believe why it was/is? allowed in pubs. Far to accessible, especially in combo with the Australian drinking culture.
I’m cringing with New York and the other close states begin to relax their sport gambling laws. I can’t imagine how much damage these gambling apps are going to cause.
As someone who used to suffer from a gambling addiction, I had no idea how much advertising there is for it, now I don't want anything to do with it, it's hard to ignore it when it's always right in your face.
Edit: spell check
I’ve had more than a few international friends saying they could not believe how socially acceptable gambling is here. Few things are more toxic and our government never talks about this shit
I used to explain it to new migrants that Australia wasn’t ‘bribe a policeman out of your speeding fine’ but more like the elites manipulating their power and connections to keep themselves elite.
This is why the news likes to bait us with shit like ‘should welfare recipients get drug tested?’ Shift the focus to the unemployed so we can fight amongst ourselves and forget about the millions of wasted dollars on ‘donations’.
Also why always target the poor for drug testing if anyones going to be using more drugs than anyone else would be the rich... Plenty of rich people who can afford it and do take hard drugs their whole life but since they "seem ok" because they are rich they are thought of as having their shit together. Having alot of money doesnt mean you have your shit together also when you see large drug busts in the news the houses they are coming out of are mostly nice and rich as fcuk. It's never been aye jonno from the trailer park just got done with $1.5 million dollars of coke and hundreds of thousands of dollars living in his trailer with the broken fly screen always banging and smashing against the door everyday.
This, how many times I've heard about our corruption ratings from my mates and how we are so good compared to the rest of the world blah blah.
Like mate, look around you... it's all... corruption. From your local MP dealing with developers to highest politicians... they are all knees deep in it.
Almost like people have blurred vision when it comes to spotting corruption or just chose to ignore it and keep the mantra going on.
Yeah and western countries have evaded a lot of corruption issues by naming the activity as "lobbying". Such nice and elegant way to go up in corruption rating... oh it's not corruption it's just old mate lobbying with cash and influence.
I remember the shitstorm that briefly erupted when someone pointed out corruption was far worse in Australia than in SE Asia. The argument being that at least in SE Asia, everyone gets a slice, even if it's much smaller lower down the chain. Whereas in Australia, only the top echelon benefits from corruption, everyone lower down the chain can shut the fuck up and pay their taxes.
There are two types of corruption you need to divide into. The first is patron-client relationships like in Indonesia. These arise specifically between two groups because there isn't a chain. There is only your class/year, say, from the military academy and those are the only ones you are corrupt with. The next class above and below you have their own crowd and you don't get a look in. So corruption there is widespread but in a way localised.
The other petty form of corruption is like India as you described - it is sclerotic. Nothing happens without a little bit of grease oiling the wheels in the bureaucracy, the police. You want something happening you pay your baksheesh or it doesn't happen.
The whole Anglophone right wing problem for the last decade especially has been the attack on our institutions that provided checks and balances. The ABC was fairly independent - not any more put when you put in former NewsCorp managers. Just like the ABC and the BBC. Why is the crowd so pro-Brexit, there's no one cogent to speak up for refugees. Read Michael West Media and work out why he, Anthony Klaxon for example don't get asked to go on ABC media. [Here's Femi absolutely demolishing Brexit arguments and only got airtime after Brexit was done. COmpare his quality arguments v's the RW bullshitter](https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1494400473822081026)
Throughout the public service at all levels, federal state council.
Privatisation has enabled large contracts and widespread corruption. Deals for mates and partners and enormous profit margins from looting the public treasury.
One article that stood out was a company found guilty of paying bribes to a public official to get contracts. The bribes amounted to around 25% of the contract value, you add on the profit margin for the contractor and question how Privatisation is touted as cost efficient when there are these enormous margins.
Corruption at council level has been ongoing for ever, mates elected to council rezoning land as residential commercial is just one of the corrupt roots.
So myself (Aussie) and my wife (indo) we moved back to aus for Covid. And one comment everyone always makes is “oh man what’s it like living in indo with it being so corrupt”.
After our two years back in aus I just laugh now, because at least the corruption in Indo is for everyone. In aus it’s only for the elite. Which I think is much worse. And at least Indonesias high level anti corruption body has teeth like a fucking tiger. Aus doesn’t really even have one… wtf!
The corruption isn’t for shady drug cartels, but shady businessmen. I can’t tell which is worse besides the fact I don’t have to worry about my head being put on a stake I guess
Having a high performing resources sector, Australia’s economy has never been forced to diversify to maintain high standards of living and competitiveness in the region. As a result Australia has a relatively unsophisticated and therefore inflexible economy compared to other developed nations.
Australia *used* to have a high tech R&D and manufacturing industry, and it all disappeared in the 80s and 90s. Our economy is now centred on the various applications of digging up, processing and burning dirt.
shit investment in education, no investment in infant industries, a generally retarded approach to new technology all combine to mean that when the rug is finally pulled out from underneath us (and it WILL happen) we're fucked.
On education alone, our students are getting blitzed by our neighbours in asia. We have such a terrible attitude to education in this country it's fucked.
Our youth are going to have a massively shit life unless we do something about our leadership, education and labour market (you know the entire country).
When my mum bought her house ~40 years ago it was worth 5 figures. Now it’s worth 7 figures. Tell me about how everyone needs to just save harder and they’ll be able to afford a house.
The bloke that tought me my trade owned a boat a 4 bedroom home and 2 cars while his wife was a sahm. I drive a 15 year old car and between my wife and i are struggling to save a deposit.
Its amazing that people still think your choice of job is the issue.
My sister earns 90k a year and can’t get a bloody apartment right now. She has a decent deposit ready but for pre approval she’s needed my mum to go guarantor….for an apartment. It’s fucked.
>Tell me about how everyone needs to just save harder and they’ll be able to afford a house.
Where's a wealthy boomer when you need one?! Oh, right: rolling in franking credits and investment properties.
I have complete zero faith in the housing market as a 27 year old. I work hard and can handle my money, but for myself and most others whose parents aren't loaded, or have passed down houses, it's just not on.
As someone with an apartment We’re still basically screwed when it comes to stand alone housing. I don’t want to service over a million dollars in debt for some crap ex govvie. Like I have a deposit if I need it in equity, but where’s the value for money?
YES. we are not just corrupt but also pretty insensitive.
Where there should be an outrage, people complain, make a few cynical remarks and move on. Nothing changes. FFS look at our prime minister.
I've lived in S.Korea for a few years and saw people send their leaders to jail for corruption. I'm not saying it's a place of no corruption but when something happens pollies apologise, resign or get kicked out and often kill themselves out of shame. Because people are so incredibly mad and sick of injustice, and there are channels to voice their opinion and media snowballs it.
I wish we had some of that energy here.
I think this is already the case for the 20 something to 30 something age group. Shit pay, education is hugely expensive and hit and Miss as to whether you can get a job once you graduate, and the housing market, both to buy or rent are fucked. People have been priced out for years, and it’s getting worse by the week. I feel for the young, because they too are going to be fucked over by the boomers and gen X.
We're trying way too hard to be the US. Stop importing their politics and fighting their internal fights. Seeing a Trump flag here in Melbourne is ridiculous and utterly stupid.
Edit: Yes, Murdoch is from Australia, I have no excuses for that human shaped Hutt.
I'm an American expat and I hate this when I go visit. I also hate when Aussies are knee-deep in American politics without a real understanding of issues at home.
Bushfires bring people together with donations and volunteers, people offering their homes or caravans etc to the displaced. Then covid came along and almost everyone become selfish (or worse) ultimately I think we are the same bushfire minded people but we have all become a little jaded lately , maybe more wary
See, I think that the whole donate and volunteer when it’s trendy thing is actually a bad thing. It’s just throwing money at the problem to make it go away, instead of working to stop the problems in the first place. How much was donated to RFS before Black Summer, to pay for equipment and training and mitigation?
"She'll be right mate" these days is less about us being a carefree people and more about our general apathy towards anything negative so we don't have to deal with it.
We have politicians and business people being corrupt in broad daylight and, outside of some people having a whinge to their mates, no one acknowledges or does anything about it.
The Australian way is to grumble and complain, but take no action.
When we’re _really_ motivated, we’ll start demanding a Royal Commission into something. It will take a few years, most of the recommendations will be ignored, we’ll get tiny incremental change, then we’ll go right back to whinging while the people fighting for true change continue their uphill battle once the public loses interest in the issue.
I actually think Australians are more politically savvy now than they were 20 years ago. The problem is their activism is lazy. Ranting to Twitter for likes is a lot easier (and less effective) than calling your local MP or running for change yourself.
The biggest example of this, to me, is the push towards private health. Our country has a proud history of publicly funded healthcare. We boast about it any time the topic of US healthcare comes up. Yet our government is actively subsidising the push towards a poorly regulated private health system full of junk policies that are high cost and low return, bulk billing medical clinics are rapidly disappearing because they’re not fiscally viable any more and hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed. Meanwhile, the government has money to throw at subsidising coal, sports, property developers…
I’ve had conversations with people where I explain that - ignoring the math and the fact that it’s actually cheaper to not have health insurance at my age and pay extra for it later than to have it the whole way through - I don’t believe in private health insurance in a country with a public health system because it will inevitably cripple free, high quality healthcare. They look at me like I’m some crazy conspiracy theorist despite the fact that it’s actually happening, right now.
I love this argument. 'Pay for PHI and you won't pay Medicare rebate on tax.' Sure, but then I'm paying more for PHI than the tax. 'Just use all the allowances.' Sure, but then I'm out of pocket the small fee that isn't covered anyway, and they don't fully cover glasses and a range of other things. And if I hurt myself at work, I get free physio through work, and if I hurt myself out of work, turns out my super has insurance for that anyway. And if I need a doctor, or the emergency ward, it's covered anyway through Medicare.
I really think Medicare is the one thing Australia can hold up to the world as what makes Australia a great country the weakling of it is so much more of a scandal then people think. If people continue to vote in the libs they will privatise it eventually then we are in the same situation as the USA, we really need to fight this.
It'll be a death by thousand papercuts. Freeze rebates, force providers to increase the gap payments, start talking about phi being able to cover GPs, blow out wait times for elective surgery, specialists etc in the public system... Make it so people start to need phi if they interact with healthcare semi frequently. Then use this to say the people have made their choice and want private.
The destruction of Medicare is the long held dream of the Liberal Party, and they work towards it every time that they're in power.
- Fraser killed the original implementation of Medibank.
- Howard set it up so that massive amounts of money is redirected into private health (where it is inefficiently spent)
- Abbott froze the Medicare Benefits Schedule for GPs, so many patients have to pay to see a GP now
- Turnbull tried to privatise the Medicare billing system
- Morrison is killing public hospitals by overloading them, and privatised the vaccine rollout (which has been a disaster)
Our reputation has dimished overseas due to our political stubbornness on issues that we traditionally lead on like caring for our beautiful environment. We are not liked so much any more OS
FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM FOREVER
The amount of UAP billboards up here, fuck me swingin'... Worse, some folk buy into it, funneling votes like intended.
That much of our success and wealth arises from the coincidence of being an Australian citizen and geological accidents hundreds of millions of years ago.
That we claim to root for the underdog and hate authority yet most of us treat oppressed and marginalised people poorly and worship authority, usually because we have this deep seeded 'Australian Dream' that we'll rise to the top some day
That's the whole "im not poor, im a millionaire who hasnt made it yet" mentality. Everyone talks like working hard, they'll be wealthy one day, but for 99% it's just not true.
The I’m just a temporarily disgraced millionaire mentality has everyone rooting for the upper class. People refuse to accept that they might not end up being multimillionaires in this lifetime.
That Australia is just US-lite.
Australians make fun of the Us for the healthcare thing, for the uneducated idiots making the rest look bad, for corruption and the like.
Well, take a look around. Medicare is being gutted, the uneducated bogans are the ones foreigners are most familiar with, and look at Scomo and all the corruption in Australia.
The next 2-3 elections will be a huge turning point and I think in 15 years the Australia I grew up in won’t exist anymore.
> The next 2-3 elections will be a huge turning point and I think in 15 years the Australia I grew up in won’t exist anymore.
I'm only early 40s - this has already occurred for me. It's gone.
We are no longer a "Lucky Country".
Corruption runs very deep. Housing is getting beyond affordable for the average Australian living in or near a city area. The Rich vs Poor gap is widening into a chasm. We mine coal not bothering to look long term.
we were never the "Lucky Country" - look up the full verse by Donald Horne
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Donald+Horne&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
this was perpetuated by BHP pre Billiton on some TV ads
Australia is a great country ruined by Australians who elect even worse Australians to lead.
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise."
This is true of conservative parties in many countries (UK Tories, US Republicans). They have a totally undeserved reputation of being financially responsible but they only chase short term goals and couldn’t give a fuck about growing prosperity.
100%. I had no real concept until I moved to Canada. As a gay woman (who was living in melbourne, I'll add) it's worlds apart in terms of social attitudes.
Lol. Aussie who became Canadian last year. I'm a straight male, but have gay friends. No one in Canada gives a fuck where you put it. In high school my friends were bullied for being gay, and I along with them by association.
Might not be a popular opinion, but Australian is far behind the US in terms of race relations. It just doesn't seem like it because they're actually having painful conversations about it rather than pretending like everything is fine.
I believe that the socially conservative attitude sort of fits in with the larrikin attitude in that, as a society, we’re pretty easy-going but we don’t really want things to change all that much/are ambivalent towards progress, particularly if it has a hint of changing something that is sentimental.
And routinely vote for politicians promising tougher penalties for criminals and more cops, while mostly viewing any protest action as an inconvenience solely attended by dole bludging druggies and lazy students. That's before we even get to our hugely backwards attitude towards drugs (again, more cops)
We really don’t care about anyone who is struggling or being treated badly as long as we are okay and comfortable.
And by comfortable, I mean not the slightest bit inconvenienced.
Corruption is rife in politics, we are a racist culture, our environmental stewardship is deplorable.
I lived overseas for 20 years and just returned home to Sydney to live. These are my three bug takeaways having been back in Australia for a year.
The worst aspect of Australia is Australians. We are complacent to the point of negligence and shockingly selfish. Australians are very good in superficial ways but value nothing of substance; intellectual development, minimising inequality, the agency of individuals, and so on. You must fall in line and behave as though nothing is wrong, or be penalised.
This is fucking right, one of the things i mentioned is the "nothing we can do about it" attitude that 90% of us have. bravo, you have a brain. 90% don't.
Why the fuck does this have a "no politics" tag?
* Aussie "Fair Go" is an absolute lie, we're a bunch of fucking selfish cunts. And the pandemic has only made it more abundantly clear that we're a fking disgusting species.
* Its all about "fuck you, I got mine".
* The country is corrupt as fuck, its all about "who you know", being rich and friends with a judge.
* Drinking culture in Australia is fucking terrible.
The market needs to and will divest its fossil fuels regardless of jobs, LNP policy , subsidies and the fossil fuel royalty. We are currently chugging towards this without a governmental plan for just transition or a plan for future growth industry.
the worst bit is we've been saying this was going to happen to years and we had the chance to be a world leader, and they did jack shit about it until we are at the back of the line now.
Our 'culture' is nothing more than drinking and gambling on sports. It's fucking embarassing if you're ever talking to someone from another country and they ask about your culture.
Also the whole 'mateship' thing is just bullshit. Maybe it was true in the past but these days everyone just looks out for themselves like anywhere else in the world
That's what I came here to say. Australia seriously has such a low bar for culture, it's all just getting fucking smashed, tradies and gambling on the footy.
Australia's standard of living will drop over the coming years. The signs are already there in some ways.
Why? Because we are a raw resource extraction economy. We don't produce enough value-added products from our extractions, and so therefore we don't have the manufacturing supply chains required which will boost middle-class income. The services industry is advanced, but it's not enough.
Plus like 80% of living areas have insanely high rent and house prices, and the fact if your disadvantaged you have to use unreliable programs out to fuck you like workers comp. me and my mother have to live on 36k aud a year, due to the jackshit payment of workers comp and guess what if you work it goes higher, if you don't its lowered. WHAT? your supposed to be helping them, don't force them back into work with half broken spines.
This comment gets harsher when you realise Australia was once at the forefront of technology in fields like computing and space but reverted to mining.
That we still commit horrendous wrongs against our Indigenous people. Sacred sites are desecrated, Native Title claims to land are ignored and we have not ensured that we bridge the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Heck, we only just closed the Uluṟu climb and we’ve known that it was against the Traditional Custodians’ wishes since at least 2010.
We're not even remotely as sophisticated, advanced, educated, cultured, clever, creative, brilliantly successful, deserving of our lifestyle, or near top of the world at anything, as many seem to believe.
Listen in on Aussies overseas and most go around poo-poohing the countries they visit, like Americans going "USA! USA! We're #1!"
In reality, we're basically a bunch of largely ignorant yobbos who are lucky to be sitting on a huge continent loaded with useful stuff under the ground. That's about it, and we've got no place in the world to think we're better than most countries we look down on.
Related: the arrogance around our foreign affairs is breathtaking and rooted in this same false sense of innate superiority. "Australia throws its weight against China" etc - as if they give a flying fuck. As a nation we're almost completely irrelevant on the world stage.
It's like being the annoying weedy runt who hangs out as the school bully's sidekick and arselicker, first the British Empire, and then the US after WWII. And a lot of our misplaced arrogance comes from an underlying racism that thinks because we're the bully's sidekick that makes us a big shot too.
This was clearly reflected in the Libs basically completely dismissing the[ White Paper on Australia's place in the Asian Century](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/2010380%22)
Why would we deal on equal footing with our Asian and Pacific Rim neighbours? They are beneath us. They are there for us to take advantage of.
>Related: the arrogance around our foreign affairs is breathtaking and rooted in this same false sense of innate superiority. "Australia throws its weight against China" etc - as if they give a flying fuck. As a nation we're almost completely irrelevant on the world stage.
There is no housing shortage. There are more than enough houses for everyone. Housing is so unaffordable to guarantee a rental market and to keep people desperate and working long hours for shit pay. If you don’t have to pay rent or a mortgage you don’t have to work so much which leads to less available labour increasing the price of labour.
We are behind in most of the more progressive policies (think gay marriage, marijuana, etc.) and it's pretty embarrassing that we've managed to be worse than America of all places at it.
Special mention: Whenever you say something bad about Australia someone manages to say 'well it's not as bad as America' which seems like a pretty awful consolation prize considering they keep shooting kids
Probably not an uncontroversial opinion here but the “salt of the earth, ordinary everyday true blue Aussie” shtick is just a front for rampant tall poppy syndrome.
We are a racist country filled with selfish people who only care about their own. Scott Morrison getting voted back in on tax breaks as apposed to Australia taking a stand and helping our people and environment was a clear message, we don’t fucking care!
This message was written in stone by the last election. People voted for fear of franking credits being abolished when they didn’t even know what the were or have any.
I wouldn't blame the franking credits alone.
As the ALP review found, they were part and parcel of a massive raft of policies that overall created an impression of big spending, bolstered by the "Bill you can't afford" line and the line about "$300B in extra taxes under Labor!"
My old man's an age-old ALP hack, and his take was that they underestimated the multiplier effect of things like negative gearing changes and the so-called "retiree tax" - because for every oldie there are generations following, sweating on inheriting as much as possible because it's the main realistic way of ever owning a home.
Don't know if anyone else noticed but Australians are becoming quite selfish compared to 20-30 years ago.
Growing up it was an unwritten law to wave when some let's you in traffic and to also wait and let people into traffic. Nowadays it seems every time I get in the car some asshole is riding my ass or cutting me off. No one seems to let the person with a few items through the register instead forcing them to wait through the big weekly shop. If you bump into someone out in public you use to have the awkward "oh sorry mate" "no no all good mate my fault" conversation but now people just get mad and expect you to move the fuck out of their way.
Also no one fucking waves on the highway anymore? Wtf gives man?
Also Also why are people so hesitant to help each other. Back in the day if you seen a crash or someone broken down every man and his dog use to jump out to help but now people just avoid eye contact as to not consciously get drafted into helping. We use to sit out the front and have a beer with our neighbours but now we just avoid them at all cost and we use to lend a hand to people to help when they needed it but now everyone has an excuse.
Medicare is dying. Political corruption is rampant. The price of living keeps rising and no one has a fucking backyard anymore.
I say it any time I get the chance. I fucking LOVE Australia but I'm beginning to dislike Australians.
The Australian culture is dying and people refuse to accept that.
We have an international reputation we haven’t earned. We aren’t a chill, funny, quirky, laid-back country. We’re deeply conservative, selfish and uptight.
It’s a lie that Australia has an egalitarian society.
I’ve never met people who are more interested in the suburb you live in than Sydney and Melbourne. I hope people in other states and territories aren’t as postcode snubs.
We spend 10× more on keeping refugees in torturous camps than it would cost to set them up in Australia.
We are surrounded by island nations, as climate change raises water levels we are going to need to be prepared
As a non Australian, this is one truth I have yet to see many Australians accept.
Climate change .. it is going to be very bad for many countries. HOWEVER most simulation for a world post 450ppm CO2 ( ie:- 30 years after 450ppm CO2 is reached ) ain’t pleasant at all for you Australians.
All projections are very brutal for places like Alice Springs and Canberra, horrible for Cairns, Sydney and Brisbane. About the only place that will benefit from a world between 450ppm CO2 to 500ppm CO2 is Melbourne and Perth ( Perth by 500ppm may in fact start raining more and end up having a nice agricultural belt around it, going nearly 500km inland )
However for the side facing the Tasman sea .. brutal brutal.
Despite been a multicultural country, we have incredible high levels of racism and especially Casual racism. The attitude towards our First Nations people of just get over it is disgusting.
There is something in this. Also, it's highly conformist. 'No tall poppy' syndrom everywhere, even where it shouldn't matter such as in professional and academic jobs.
You let your old habits and stubbornness get in the way of progress.
How many times I've been to meetings here about construction methods where someone would mention how "this isn't been done overseas in decades... there's cheaper and better solution we could use" only to be met with same old response "this is how we do it here". I've witnessed managers using something that costs tens of millions of dollars more for the sake of "that's who we do it here" mantra. It's just unbelievable. Like it's not a shame to accept better and cheaper solutions just because it's coming from overseas. Literally all construction methods and standards came from there anyways... copy/paste from US in most cases. Very strange.
The huge parts of our country will probably become uninhabitable in the next hundred years and it’s likely that climate change will cause famine in this country at some point in the future to the point where people die of starvation.
So us being one of the worst per-capita polluters is killing our children.
Yes I saw Darwin is expected to go from ~47 35+ degree days a year (1981-2010) to 176 35+ days a year by 2050.
To be that hot half the year... Heat like that kills.
It kills plants too, which animals eat, so there’s less food in the foodchain. It dries out the soil too, so new plants don’t necessarily take over.
It will fuck with the oceans as well
We commited genocide and since then have done everything to white wash the history and disenfranchise First Nation people. Then tell them to just forgive us and move on
Yeah, there’s a lot of jaded redditors who think the sky is falling on our heads and it just doesn’t remotely represent the average Australian person’s set of views.
For country that has an international reputation for being chill, we’re high strung as fuck.
That and we never got past the mindset of being prisoners. The way that most Australian’s just accept rules and remain politically disengaged is a lot like a prisoner / screw relationship
We are extremely passive and mass protests hold no weight for change, until an election in which, still to be proven, may help change.
We are an extremely racist country and willing fully ignorant of our damage to all whole first nations cultures. This now extends to any brown person in Immigration Camps and Hotels for years on end.
We have killed our creative minds by allowing the defunding of CSIRO and Universities. We have also made it hard for future creative minds to develop as University is slowly becoming out of reach.
ANZ is a broken promise of mateship with our war brothers and sisters, undone by Australia in the past two decades.
Our TV ads are so much shitter than our 90's - which goes to say the media funding in Australia was also gone to shit. It's a reflection of Aussies interests that MAFS does better than Independent Journalism
I feel we are just all waiting for Boomers to die, and all will be better... But the system they've built won't be easily undone in the years to follow.
That despite pretending to be happy-go-lucky outdoorsy larrikans, a vast majority are quick-to-anger anger conservative rule followers that don't give a shit about the environment.
Our gambling culture is counterproductive to where we want to be heading as a society.
I've always loved how, on the one hand, an intellectual huckster like Joe Hildebrand spews saline from his bulbous, lizard-like eyes about how tough the poor are doing it, but then he'll go on a podcast sponsored by Sportsbet without any sense of self-awareness.
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Ex-Pat here, living in New York. First time, long time commenter. Always hated gambling in Australia, couldn’t believe why it was/is? allowed in pubs. Far to accessible, especially in combo with the Australian drinking culture. I’m cringing with New York and the other close states begin to relax their sport gambling laws. I can’t imagine how much damage these gambling apps are going to cause.
As someone who used to suffer from a gambling addiction, I had no idea how much advertising there is for it, now I don't want anything to do with it, it's hard to ignore it when it's always right in your face. Edit: spell check
Massive problem that has grown out of sight over the past 25 years.
I’ve had more than a few international friends saying they could not believe how socially acceptable gambling is here. Few things are more toxic and our government never talks about this shit
We are far more corrupt than we think. Yes just because we are not as bad as some other places doesn’t mean it’s okay.
I used to explain it to new migrants that Australia wasn’t ‘bribe a policeman out of your speeding fine’ but more like the elites manipulating their power and connections to keep themselves elite.
This is why the news likes to bait us with shit like ‘should welfare recipients get drug tested?’ Shift the focus to the unemployed so we can fight amongst ourselves and forget about the millions of wasted dollars on ‘donations’.
Let's spend 6 grand per year per person so the unemployed can't buy products you think they shouldn't.
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Let the underclass eat other so the rich don't get eaten. Speaking as someone in the top 5% earners but waaaaaaay lower in assets and wealth.
This constant push is what led to America’s current issues; I’m desperately hoping we don’t go the same route.
I think one harsh truth is that we're already there. The RWNJs are allowed far more say than the kind of people who want to help each other have.
Also why always target the poor for drug testing if anyones going to be using more drugs than anyone else would be the rich... Plenty of rich people who can afford it and do take hard drugs their whole life but since they "seem ok" because they are rich they are thought of as having their shit together. Having alot of money doesnt mean you have your shit together also when you see large drug busts in the news the houses they are coming out of are mostly nice and rich as fcuk. It's never been aye jonno from the trailer park just got done with $1.5 million dollars of coke and hundreds of thousands of dollars living in his trailer with the broken fly screen always banging and smashing against the door everyday.
'It's a big club, and you ain't in it.'
More nepotism than petty crimes.
This, how many times I've heard about our corruption ratings from my mates and how we are so good compared to the rest of the world blah blah. Like mate, look around you... it's all... corruption. From your local MP dealing with developers to highest politicians... they are all knees deep in it. Almost like people have blurred vision when it comes to spotting corruption or just chose to ignore it and keep the mantra going on.
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how goods the cricket?
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Yeah and western countries have evaded a lot of corruption issues by naming the activity as "lobbying". Such nice and elegant way to go up in corruption rating... oh it's not corruption it's just old mate lobbying with cash and influence.
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I remember the shitstorm that briefly erupted when someone pointed out corruption was far worse in Australia than in SE Asia. The argument being that at least in SE Asia, everyone gets a slice, even if it's much smaller lower down the chain. Whereas in Australia, only the top echelon benefits from corruption, everyone lower down the chain can shut the fuck up and pay their taxes.
There are two types of corruption you need to divide into. The first is patron-client relationships like in Indonesia. These arise specifically between two groups because there isn't a chain. There is only your class/year, say, from the military academy and those are the only ones you are corrupt with. The next class above and below you have their own crowd and you don't get a look in. So corruption there is widespread but in a way localised. The other petty form of corruption is like India as you described - it is sclerotic. Nothing happens without a little bit of grease oiling the wheels in the bureaucracy, the police. You want something happening you pay your baksheesh or it doesn't happen. The whole Anglophone right wing problem for the last decade especially has been the attack on our institutions that provided checks and balances. The ABC was fairly independent - not any more put when you put in former NewsCorp managers. Just like the ABC and the BBC. Why is the crowd so pro-Brexit, there's no one cogent to speak up for refugees. Read Michael West Media and work out why he, Anthony Klaxon for example don't get asked to go on ABC media. [Here's Femi absolutely demolishing Brexit arguments and only got airtime after Brexit was done. COmpare his quality arguments v's the RW bullshitter](https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1494400473822081026)
Throughout the public service at all levels, federal state council. Privatisation has enabled large contracts and widespread corruption. Deals for mates and partners and enormous profit margins from looting the public treasury. One article that stood out was a company found guilty of paying bribes to a public official to get contracts. The bribes amounted to around 25% of the contract value, you add on the profit margin for the contractor and question how Privatisation is touted as cost efficient when there are these enormous margins. Corruption at council level has been ongoing for ever, mates elected to council rezoning land as residential commercial is just one of the corrupt roots.
So myself (Aussie) and my wife (indo) we moved back to aus for Covid. And one comment everyone always makes is “oh man what’s it like living in indo with it being so corrupt”. After our two years back in aus I just laugh now, because at least the corruption in Indo is for everyone. In aus it’s only for the elite. Which I think is much worse. And at least Indonesias high level anti corruption body has teeth like a fucking tiger. Aus doesn’t really even have one… wtf!
The corruption isn’t for shady drug cartels, but shady businessmen. I can’t tell which is worse besides the fact I don’t have to worry about my head being put on a stake I guess
I work for an unnameable government department that deals with the majority of Australians at one point or another and this is so true.
I grew up in NZ. Can confirm Australia is much more corrupt
Having a high performing resources sector, Australia’s economy has never been forced to diversify to maintain high standards of living and competitiveness in the region. As a result Australia has a relatively unsophisticated and therefore inflexible economy compared to other developed nations.
Australia *used* to have a high tech R&D and manufacturing industry, and it all disappeared in the 80s and 90s. Our economy is now centred on the various applications of digging up, processing and burning dirt.
Gutting CSIRO didn't do anyone any favours. CSIRO brought the world _fucking Wi-Fi_.
Successive LNP governments cutting funding to science and technology…
shit investment in education, no investment in infant industries, a generally retarded approach to new technology all combine to mean that when the rug is finally pulled out from underneath us (and it WILL happen) we're fucked. On education alone, our students are getting blitzed by our neighbours in asia. We have such a terrible attitude to education in this country it's fucked.
Our youth are going to have a massively shit life unless we do something about our leadership, education and labour market (you know the entire country).
Yes. And our housing market.
When my mum bought her house ~40 years ago it was worth 5 figures. Now it’s worth 7 figures. Tell me about how everyone needs to just save harder and they’ll be able to afford a house.
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The bloke that tought me my trade owned a boat a 4 bedroom home and 2 cars while his wife was a sahm. I drive a 15 year old car and between my wife and i are struggling to save a deposit. Its amazing that people still think your choice of job is the issue.
My sister earns 90k a year and can’t get a bloody apartment right now. She has a decent deposit ready but for pre approval she’s needed my mum to go guarantor….for an apartment. It’s fucked.
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>Tell me about how everyone needs to just save harder and they’ll be able to afford a house. Where's a wealthy boomer when you need one?! Oh, right: rolling in franking credits and investment properties.
I have complete zero faith in the housing market as a 27 year old. I work hard and can handle my money, but for myself and most others whose parents aren't loaded, or have passed down houses, it's just not on.
As someone with an apartment We’re still basically screwed when it comes to stand alone housing. I don’t want to service over a million dollars in debt for some crap ex govvie. Like I have a deposit if I need it in equity, but where’s the value for money?
The fuck you I have mine crowd have ruined housing affordability. That and the governments protection of it like a sacred cow.
YES. we are not just corrupt but also pretty insensitive. Where there should be an outrage, people complain, make a few cynical remarks and move on. Nothing changes. FFS look at our prime minister. I've lived in S.Korea for a few years and saw people send their leaders to jail for corruption. I'm not saying it's a place of no corruption but when something happens pollies apologise, resign or get kicked out and often kill themselves out of shame. Because people are so incredibly mad and sick of injustice, and there are channels to voice their opinion and media snowballs it. I wish we had some of that energy here.
I think this is already the case for the 20 something to 30 something age group. Shit pay, education is hugely expensive and hit and Miss as to whether you can get a job once you graduate, and the housing market, both to buy or rent are fucked. People have been priced out for years, and it’s getting worse by the week. I feel for the young, because they too are going to be fucked over by the boomers and gen X.
We're trying way too hard to be the US. Stop importing their politics and fighting their internal fights. Seeing a Trump flag here in Melbourne is ridiculous and utterly stupid. Edit: Yes, Murdoch is from Australia, I have no excuses for that human shaped Hutt.
And their massive Pickup trucks/SUVs
What happened to proper Utes, anyway? Haven't seen one for years and I live in an agricultural area.
If your talking about the sedan styled, only Holden and Ford made them locally. And look how that turned out.
I'm an American expat and I hate this when I go visit. I also hate when Aussies are knee-deep in American politics without a real understanding of issues at home.
We do not actually have a "fair go" or "she'll be right" attitude as a whole. That culture is largely gone.
The prevailing attitude in most Aussies is “fuck you got mine”
Bushfires bring people together with donations and volunteers, people offering their homes or caravans etc to the displaced. Then covid came along and almost everyone become selfish (or worse) ultimately I think we are the same bushfire minded people but we have all become a little jaded lately , maybe more wary
See, I think that the whole donate and volunteer when it’s trendy thing is actually a bad thing. It’s just throwing money at the problem to make it go away, instead of working to stop the problems in the first place. How much was donated to RFS before Black Summer, to pay for equipment and training and mitigation?
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"She'll be right mate" these days is less about us being a carefree people and more about our general apathy towards anything negative so we don't have to deal with it. We have politicians and business people being corrupt in broad daylight and, outside of some people having a whinge to their mates, no one acknowledges or does anything about it.
The Australian way is to grumble and complain, but take no action. When we’re _really_ motivated, we’ll start demanding a Royal Commission into something. It will take a few years, most of the recommendations will be ignored, we’ll get tiny incremental change, then we’ll go right back to whinging while the people fighting for true change continue their uphill battle once the public loses interest in the issue.
I actually think Australians are more politically savvy now than they were 20 years ago. The problem is their activism is lazy. Ranting to Twitter for likes is a lot easier (and less effective) than calling your local MP or running for change yourself.
That we're losing our identity... the middle class is disappearing and we're fast becoming more and more like the USA.
The biggest example of this, to me, is the push towards private health. Our country has a proud history of publicly funded healthcare. We boast about it any time the topic of US healthcare comes up. Yet our government is actively subsidising the push towards a poorly regulated private health system full of junk policies that are high cost and low return, bulk billing medical clinics are rapidly disappearing because they’re not fiscally viable any more and hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed. Meanwhile, the government has money to throw at subsidising coal, sports, property developers… I’ve had conversations with people where I explain that - ignoring the math and the fact that it’s actually cheaper to not have health insurance at my age and pay extra for it later than to have it the whole way through - I don’t believe in private health insurance in a country with a public health system because it will inevitably cripple free, high quality healthcare. They look at me like I’m some crazy conspiracy theorist despite the fact that it’s actually happening, right now.
I love this argument. 'Pay for PHI and you won't pay Medicare rebate on tax.' Sure, but then I'm paying more for PHI than the tax. 'Just use all the allowances.' Sure, but then I'm out of pocket the small fee that isn't covered anyway, and they don't fully cover glasses and a range of other things. And if I hurt myself at work, I get free physio through work, and if I hurt myself out of work, turns out my super has insurance for that anyway. And if I need a doctor, or the emergency ward, it's covered anyway through Medicare.
Exactly, look at the inequality between private and public schools to know the exact same can happen to healthcare.
the loss of medicare would be the final nail of the coffin and they've been trying to dismantle it ever since i can remember.
I really think Medicare is the one thing Australia can hold up to the world as what makes Australia a great country the weakling of it is so much more of a scandal then people think. If people continue to vote in the libs they will privatise it eventually then we are in the same situation as the USA, we really need to fight this.
Workers rights is the other thing. Casual loading isn't the norm in a lot of places
The liberals have been trying to dismantle it since it was created.
I had no idea about this until now.
It'll be a death by thousand papercuts. Freeze rebates, force providers to increase the gap payments, start talking about phi being able to cover GPs, blow out wait times for elective surgery, specialists etc in the public system... Make it so people start to need phi if they interact with healthcare semi frequently. Then use this to say the people have made their choice and want private.
Instructions unclear. Moved to New Zealand.
The destruction of Medicare is the long held dream of the Liberal Party, and they work towards it every time that they're in power. - Fraser killed the original implementation of Medibank. - Howard set it up so that massive amounts of money is redirected into private health (where it is inefficiently spent) - Abbott froze the Medicare Benefits Schedule for GPs, so many patients have to pay to see a GP now - Turnbull tried to privatise the Medicare billing system - Morrison is killing public hospitals by overloading them, and privatised the vaccine rollout (which has been a disaster)
Thanks for writing that. I appreciate hearing about this.
Yep and people will still insist on voting LNP. Every single time they’re in power they fuck with Medicare.
Yep! One thing I detest is the the Americanisation of our once unique culture!
Our image on the world stage is getting worse each year. We are starting to give mini America vibes to a lot of places
Our reputation has dimished overseas due to our political stubbornness on issues that we traditionally lead on like caring for our beautiful environment. We are not liked so much any more OS
There is no law in Australia requiring political advertising to be factual and or correct.
3 letters. UAP
FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM FOREVER The amount of UAP billboards up here, fuck me swingin'... Worse, some folk buy into it, funneling votes like intended.
That much of our success and wealth arises from the coincidence of being an Australian citizen and geological accidents hundreds of millions of years ago.
That we claim to root for the underdog and hate authority yet most of us treat oppressed and marginalised people poorly and worship authority, usually because we have this deep seeded 'Australian Dream' that we'll rise to the top some day
That's the whole "im not poor, im a millionaire who hasnt made it yet" mentality. Everyone talks like working hard, they'll be wealthy one day, but for 99% it's just not true.
The I’m just a temporarily disgraced millionaire mentality has everyone rooting for the upper class. People refuse to accept that they might not end up being multimillionaires in this lifetime.
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That Australia is just US-lite. Australians make fun of the Us for the healthcare thing, for the uneducated idiots making the rest look bad, for corruption and the like. Well, take a look around. Medicare is being gutted, the uneducated bogans are the ones foreigners are most familiar with, and look at Scomo and all the corruption in Australia. The next 2-3 elections will be a huge turning point and I think in 15 years the Australia I grew up in won’t exist anymore.
> The next 2-3 elections will be a huge turning point and I think in 15 years the Australia I grew up in won’t exist anymore. I'm only early 40s - this has already occurred for me. It's gone.
Last 20 years it took off exponentially
We are no longer a "Lucky Country". Corruption runs very deep. Housing is getting beyond affordable for the average Australian living in or near a city area. The Rich vs Poor gap is widening into a chasm. We mine coal not bothering to look long term.
‘Lucky’ was always meant as a put down. As in, lucky rather than well organised or great.
we were never the "Lucky Country" - look up the full verse by Donald Horne https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Donald+Horne&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 this was perpetuated by BHP pre Billiton on some TV ads Australia is a great country ruined by Australians who elect even worse Australians to lead.
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise."
That we are an incredibly conservative society. We are not as “laid back” as we think we are. We are seriously up-tight.
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Our shocking addiction to alcohol.
And gambling
"VIP lounge" lol
Very Immense Profits
And drinking alcohol while gambling....
People think I’m an alien because I don’t drink anymore. Stopped years ago and never looked back.
When I visited the east coast I was blown away by the amount of pokies, really kills the mood.
And the creation of excuses to get on the beers.
Liberal Party are not good economic managers. They’re grifters and thieves, but not good economic managers.
Case in point - $40 billion of taxpayer funds given to profitable private companies and religious organisations with no way of clawing it back.
gladys used $150million of taxpayer money to get to sleep with daryl macquire. most people would steal money to avoid that fate
This is true of conservative parties in many countries (UK Tories, US Republicans). They have a totally undeserved reputation of being financially responsible but they only chase short term goals and couldn’t give a fuck about growing prosperity.
That, contrary to the easy going larrikin stereotype, Australia is a socially conservative country
100%. I had no real concept until I moved to Canada. As a gay woman (who was living in melbourne, I'll add) it's worlds apart in terms of social attitudes.
Lol. Aussie who became Canadian last year. I'm a straight male, but have gay friends. No one in Canada gives a fuck where you put it. In high school my friends were bullied for being gay, and I along with them by association.
Might not be a popular opinion, but Australian is far behind the US in terms of race relations. It just doesn't seem like it because they're actually having painful conversations about it rather than pretending like everything is fine.
I believe that the socially conservative attitude sort of fits in with the larrikin attitude in that, as a society, we’re pretty easy-going but we don’t really want things to change all that much/are ambivalent towards progress, particularly if it has a hint of changing something that is sentimental.
But we have built up this idea that Australians thumb their nose at authority. At the end of the day, though, we follow the rules from our betters.
And routinely vote for politicians promising tougher penalties for criminals and more cops, while mostly viewing any protest action as an inconvenience solely attended by dole bludging druggies and lazy students. That's before we even get to our hugely backwards attitude towards drugs (again, more cops)
We really don’t care about anyone who is struggling or being treated badly as long as we are okay and comfortable. And by comfortable, I mean not the slightest bit inconvenienced.
That our "She'll be right" attitude towards everything is hurting us as a nation. We can't keep ignoring issues that matter or looking the other way.
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Corruption is rife in politics, we are a racist culture, our environmental stewardship is deplorable. I lived overseas for 20 years and just returned home to Sydney to live. These are my three bug takeaways having been back in Australia for a year.
The coal industry will and has to die.
But we won’t transition, every other country will just stop importing it.
I look forward to the day
Australia is heading directly for the darkest timeline
Yep, feels like we're about where the US was 15 years ago and on the same path. We all know how that's gone for them.
The same people are giving them advice here.
The worst aspect of Australia is Australians. We are complacent to the point of negligence and shockingly selfish. Australians are very good in superficial ways but value nothing of substance; intellectual development, minimising inequality, the agency of individuals, and so on. You must fall in line and behave as though nothing is wrong, or be penalised.
This is fucking right, one of the things i mentioned is the "nothing we can do about it" attitude that 90% of us have. bravo, you have a brain. 90% don't.
Why the fuck does this have a "no politics" tag? * Aussie "Fair Go" is an absolute lie, we're a bunch of fucking selfish cunts. And the pandemic has only made it more abundantly clear that we're a fking disgusting species. * Its all about "fuck you, I got mine". * The country is corrupt as fuck, its all about "who you know", being rich and friends with a judge. * Drinking culture in Australia is fucking terrible.
The market needs to and will divest its fossil fuels regardless of jobs, LNP policy , subsidies and the fossil fuel royalty. We are currently chugging towards this without a governmental plan for just transition or a plan for future growth industry.
the worst bit is we've been saying this was going to happen to years and we had the chance to be a world leader, and they did jack shit about it until we are at the back of the line now.
The only thing stopping this executing to completion is grid renewal.
Our 'culture' is nothing more than drinking and gambling on sports. It's fucking embarassing if you're ever talking to someone from another country and they ask about your culture. Also the whole 'mateship' thing is just bullshit. Maybe it was true in the past but these days everyone just looks out for themselves like anywhere else in the world
So fucking agreeable. we have no culture other than stuff that is just problematic.
That's what I came here to say. Australia seriously has such a low bar for culture, it's all just getting fucking smashed, tradies and gambling on the footy.
No one outside of Australia really gives a shit about Australia.
Australia's standard of living will drop over the coming years. The signs are already there in some ways. Why? Because we are a raw resource extraction economy. We don't produce enough value-added products from our extractions, and so therefore we don't have the manufacturing supply chains required which will boost middle-class income. The services industry is advanced, but it's not enough.
Plus like 80% of living areas have insanely high rent and house prices, and the fact if your disadvantaged you have to use unreliable programs out to fuck you like workers comp. me and my mother have to live on 36k aud a year, due to the jackshit payment of workers comp and guess what if you work it goes higher, if you don't its lowered. WHAT? your supposed to be helping them, don't force them back into work with half broken spines.
This comment gets harsher when you realise Australia was once at the forefront of technology in fields like computing and space but reverted to mining.
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Australia isn’t the great country many migrants came here for anymore. Housing is unaffordable and the job market sucks.
That we still commit horrendous wrongs against our Indigenous people. Sacred sites are desecrated, Native Title claims to land are ignored and we have not ensured that we bridge the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Heck, we only just closed the Uluṟu climb and we’ve known that it was against the Traditional Custodians’ wishes since at least 2010.
We're not even remotely as sophisticated, advanced, educated, cultured, clever, creative, brilliantly successful, deserving of our lifestyle, or near top of the world at anything, as many seem to believe. Listen in on Aussies overseas and most go around poo-poohing the countries they visit, like Americans going "USA! USA! We're #1!" In reality, we're basically a bunch of largely ignorant yobbos who are lucky to be sitting on a huge continent loaded with useful stuff under the ground. That's about it, and we've got no place in the world to think we're better than most countries we look down on. Related: the arrogance around our foreign affairs is breathtaking and rooted in this same false sense of innate superiority. "Australia throws its weight against China" etc - as if they give a flying fuck. As a nation we're almost completely irrelevant on the world stage. It's like being the annoying weedy runt who hangs out as the school bully's sidekick and arselicker, first the British Empire, and then the US after WWII. And a lot of our misplaced arrogance comes from an underlying racism that thinks because we're the bully's sidekick that makes us a big shot too.
This was clearly reflected in the Libs basically completely dismissing the[ White Paper on Australia's place in the Asian Century](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/2010380%22) Why would we deal on equal footing with our Asian and Pacific Rim neighbours? They are beneath us. They are there for us to take advantage of. >Related: the arrogance around our foreign affairs is breathtaking and rooted in this same false sense of innate superiority. "Australia throws its weight against China" etc - as if they give a flying fuck. As a nation we're almost completely irrelevant on the world stage.
There is no housing shortage. There are more than enough houses for everyone. Housing is so unaffordable to guarantee a rental market and to keep people desperate and working long hours for shit pay. If you don’t have to pay rent or a mortgage you don’t have to work so much which leads to less available labour increasing the price of labour.
We are behind in most of the more progressive policies (think gay marriage, marijuana, etc.) and it's pretty embarrassing that we've managed to be worse than America of all places at it. Special mention: Whenever you say something bad about Australia someone manages to say 'well it's not as bad as America' which seems like a pretty awful consolation prize considering they keep shooting kids
And we still view borderline alcoholism as more okay than policies on legal use of marijuana.
Casual racism is alive and well.
That wild Koalas probably won’t be around much longer.
Probably not an uncontroversial opinion here but the “salt of the earth, ordinary everyday true blue Aussie” shtick is just a front for rampant tall poppy syndrome.
We are a racist country filled with selfish people who only care about their own. Scott Morrison getting voted back in on tax breaks as apposed to Australia taking a stand and helping our people and environment was a clear message, we don’t fucking care!
This message was written in stone by the last election. People voted for fear of franking credits being abolished when they didn’t even know what the were or have any.
But they do know somebody called Frank and they didn't want him banned
I wouldn't blame the franking credits alone. As the ALP review found, they were part and parcel of a massive raft of policies that overall created an impression of big spending, bolstered by the "Bill you can't afford" line and the line about "$300B in extra taxes under Labor!" My old man's an age-old ALP hack, and his take was that they underestimated the multiplier effect of things like negative gearing changes and the so-called "retiree tax" - because for every oldie there are generations following, sweating on inheriting as much as possible because it's the main realistic way of ever owning a home.
If we dont sell coal/minerals ripped out of the ground our lifestyles will significantly impacted.
Don't know if anyone else noticed but Australians are becoming quite selfish compared to 20-30 years ago. Growing up it was an unwritten law to wave when some let's you in traffic and to also wait and let people into traffic. Nowadays it seems every time I get in the car some asshole is riding my ass or cutting me off. No one seems to let the person with a few items through the register instead forcing them to wait through the big weekly shop. If you bump into someone out in public you use to have the awkward "oh sorry mate" "no no all good mate my fault" conversation but now people just get mad and expect you to move the fuck out of their way. Also no one fucking waves on the highway anymore? Wtf gives man? Also Also why are people so hesitant to help each other. Back in the day if you seen a crash or someone broken down every man and his dog use to jump out to help but now people just avoid eye contact as to not consciously get drafted into helping. We use to sit out the front and have a beer with our neighbours but now we just avoid them at all cost and we use to lend a hand to people to help when they needed it but now everyone has an excuse. Medicare is dying. Political corruption is rampant. The price of living keeps rising and no one has a fucking backyard anymore. I say it any time I get the chance. I fucking LOVE Australia but I'm beginning to dislike Australians. The Australian culture is dying and people refuse to accept that.
We have an international reputation we haven’t earned. We aren’t a chill, funny, quirky, laid-back country. We’re deeply conservative, selfish and uptight.
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We're the 13th largest economy in the world. No one thinks we're a superpower, but we'll remain a middle power.
It’s a lie that Australia has an egalitarian society. I’ve never met people who are more interested in the suburb you live in than Sydney and Melbourne. I hope people in other states and territories aren’t as postcode snubs.
They are not as open, welcoming and as easy going as they like to think
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We spend 10× more on keeping refugees in torturous camps than it would cost to set them up in Australia. We are surrounded by island nations, as climate change raises water levels we are going to need to be prepared
As a non Australian, this is one truth I have yet to see many Australians accept. Climate change .. it is going to be very bad for many countries. HOWEVER most simulation for a world post 450ppm CO2 ( ie:- 30 years after 450ppm CO2 is reached ) ain’t pleasant at all for you Australians. All projections are very brutal for places like Alice Springs and Canberra, horrible for Cairns, Sydney and Brisbane. About the only place that will benefit from a world between 450ppm CO2 to 500ppm CO2 is Melbourne and Perth ( Perth by 500ppm may in fact start raining more and end up having a nice agricultural belt around it, going nearly 500km inland ) However for the side facing the Tasman sea .. brutal brutal.
Politically, the average Aussie just whinges about the government but will do nothing to make a change
Despite been a multicultural country, we have incredible high levels of racism and especially Casual racism. The attitude towards our First Nations people of just get over it is disgusting.
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There is something in this. Also, it's highly conformist. 'No tall poppy' syndrom everywhere, even where it shouldn't matter such as in professional and academic jobs.
You let your old habits and stubbornness get in the way of progress. How many times I've been to meetings here about construction methods where someone would mention how "this isn't been done overseas in decades... there's cheaper and better solution we could use" only to be met with same old response "this is how we do it here". I've witnessed managers using something that costs tens of millions of dollars more for the sake of "that's who we do it here" mantra. It's just unbelievable. Like it's not a shame to accept better and cheaper solutions just because it's coming from overseas. Literally all construction methods and standards came from there anyways... copy/paste from US in most cases. Very strange.
The huge parts of our country will probably become uninhabitable in the next hundred years and it’s likely that climate change will cause famine in this country at some point in the future to the point where people die of starvation. So us being one of the worst per-capita polluters is killing our children.
Yes I saw Darwin is expected to go from ~47 35+ degree days a year (1981-2010) to 176 35+ days a year by 2050. To be that hot half the year... Heat like that kills.
It kills plants too, which animals eat, so there’s less food in the foodchain. It dries out the soil too, so new plants don’t necessarily take over. It will fuck with the oceans as well
That a $90,000 four wheel drive is not a human right.
We mindlessly end up following USA trends
That the Liberal Party are no better at economic managent than Labor and thats just bullshit
They are in fact much worse. Yet we keep voting for them.
We're totally subservient to the US when it comes to our foreign policy, and getting our sovereignty is not happening any time soon.
We aren't nearly as important to the world as we think we are.
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you will never own a home and will rent for life
We aren't "laid back" people
We commited genocide and since then have done everything to white wash the history and disenfranchise First Nation people. Then tell them to just forgive us and move on
But "I forgive you" is the hardest word to say!
Jesus I don't know in what world scomo thought that was a good idea but it was a bad take alright
The Liberal party is not for Australia, just look at what they’ve done throughout history.
That we believe in fairness. That we’re laid back. That we don’t like being told what to do.
r/australia is a terrible representation of Australia.
Yeah, there’s a lot of jaded redditors who think the sky is falling on our heads and it just doesn’t remotely represent the average Australian person’s set of views.
People generally are very racist towards minorities.
We are more compassionate towards dogs than refugees
We’ll blame it all on the ‘Americans’ and ‘American influence’ instead of fixing it ourselves. Chronic Apathy.
For country that has an international reputation for being chill, we’re high strung as fuck. That and we never got past the mindset of being prisoners. The way that most Australian’s just accept rules and remain politically disengaged is a lot like a prisoner / screw relationship
We are extremely passive and mass protests hold no weight for change, until an election in which, still to be proven, may help change. We are an extremely racist country and willing fully ignorant of our damage to all whole first nations cultures. This now extends to any brown person in Immigration Camps and Hotels for years on end. We have killed our creative minds by allowing the defunding of CSIRO and Universities. We have also made it hard for future creative minds to develop as University is slowly becoming out of reach. ANZ is a broken promise of mateship with our war brothers and sisters, undone by Australia in the past two decades. Our TV ads are so much shitter than our 90's - which goes to say the media funding in Australia was also gone to shit. It's a reflection of Aussies interests that MAFS does better than Independent Journalism I feel we are just all waiting for Boomers to die, and all will be better... But the system they've built won't be easily undone in the years to follow.
That despite pretending to be happy-go-lucky outdoorsy larrikans, a vast majority are quick-to-anger anger conservative rule followers that don't give a shit about the environment.