this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
79 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

3613 readers
67 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @[email protected] who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @[email protected] and @[email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
79
Social cohesion lowest on record as Australia reels from cost of living, inequality concerns and voice debate (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Relentless cost-of-living pressure, rising interest rates, uncertainty about the direction of the economy and growing concern about inequality has undermined Australia’s sense of social cohesion, according to authoritative new research.

After a polarising voice referendum campaign and amid rising community tensions over the war in the Middle East, the latest Mapping Social Cohesion Report puts the Scanlon-Monash Index of Social Cohesion at its lowest ebb since the survey began 16 years ago.

The social cohesion index provides a barometer of social wellbeing, measuring belonging, worth, participation, acceptance and rejection, social inclusion and justice. The measure declined by four points over the past 12 months, hitting the lowest result on record. Since November 2020 – the peak of social cohesion recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic – the index has plummeted 13 points.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, yes, here in Australia it's the Liberals and Nationals, but also people like Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer. Especially Palmer, who has been using massive amounts of money on ad campaigns to distort debates and deceive the public.

But it's not just in Australia, and this is going back decades now. You could say it started with Reagan and Thatcher. Reagan was very open about his distrust in government, and used his presidency to hollow it out and turn the country towards neoliberalism. Thatcher's brutal austerity can be said to have set the country on the path that eventually culminated in the Brexit shitshow. Here in Australia the downward spiral arguably started with John Howard. In Germany, some of the decisions made through the reunification process caused an inequality between East and West that is still present today.

But it's not just politicians. Everywhere in the world there are wealthy businessmen who use their wealth to influence politics. I'd have to spend the next hour typing if I wanted to give you a reasonably exhaustive list. Then the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the 2001 attacks accelerated the process. There are businesspeople who are very apt at profiting from crises, and some of them made an absolute killing from 9/11. Every major crisis in at least the last 50 years, from 9/11 through to Covid, has been an exercise in upwards wealth redistribution.