Alone we are strong...together we are stronger...

We are witnessing the shrinking role of the government, at all levels, our governments have stepped back from providing a whole raft of social services through funding cuts, privatisation and the imposition policies on those unfortunate enough to remain dependent. The result is more and more people falling into long-term poverty, social isolation and poor health.

How Lobbyists and Loopholes Corrupt Our Government...

Video by Represent Us

"If the shoe fits...do we not think that this happens in Australia?"

These policies, the motivation behind them has over decades shaped everyone's behavior, "the frog in the boiling water" syndrome. In my opinion, Aussie society has become organised around the idea that everyone must look after themselves or else, again as a result, the logical outcome is for people to focus only on their own self-interest.

In this current political reality, we need to work towards a more humane economic system under more compassionate leadership, we need to encourage as leaders acts of community togetherness and build social safety nets at the local level.

Pushed by fear and the other deadly sin, "envy", our now system not only rewards selfishness but actively punishes the opposite, people behave accordingly, by hoarding, but most disturbingly, stop caring about anyone or anything that is not in their direct sphere.

This, I personally think, is terrible for our Aussie society as a whole, especially in hard times, flood, fire etc, when we most need people to be community minded. If everyone acts only for themselves we all lose.

What do we do about it?

This situation has been driven by the trust deficit for so many who felt abandoned by the different levels of government during the bushfire/flood crisis and every other crisis, over the decades now.

The hoarding of money and property in a world where people are homeless and living below the poverty line is precisely the behaviour that our economic system currently rewards and celebrates. Why is it that an average citizen with their trolley stacked high with toilet paper is currently attacked, while billionaires with so much wealth they couldn't spend it in a lifetime...are celebrated?

We need a systematic response, as we face an ever increasing number of crises, we need our newly elected representatives in new government to build community resilience by changing the rules that currently erode our sense of community security and trust. And to do this, we will need new leadership of independent representatives to shape a new economic system that prioritises equality over accumulation at the top.

The first step is this next State election, elect passionate representatives, like myself, that care not about their personal fortunes or positions of power, we need to be more proactive in our choices for representing us, get involved in local government and community associations, by reaching out and getting to know your prospective leaders better before you cast a vote and by doing so change the current obvious mindset of selfishness because unless we start to elect good people whom believe in a more equitable world the less chance our children and their children will ever get to know what a great feeling helping each other out can truly feel like.