There has, in recent weeks, been an undercurrent of discontent and growing anger amongst the Australian general public. I have seen it in the increasing tide of disillusionment at our established media and their coverage of current affairs. The growing animosity against traditional Australian retailers and their price gouging, particularly in the wake of the strong Australian dollar is getting more strident every day.
And politics between the two main parties appears to have become nothing more than a competition over who can impress the far right Shock Jocks on talk-back radio.
The driving force behind the increasing enmity? We have been left behind.
Our elected representatives have failed to take into account the interests of those they represent and instead harken to the lobbyists, corporations and interest groups who mangle the legislation until they become sucklings at the government teet.
The press, those that are charged with keeping our elected officials to account, have disappeared up their navels, instead driving their own puerile agenda whilst insisting that they know best what we want.
And the corporations? They have never had our interests at heart. Corporations, big or small, exist on this planet to make money. I don't begrudge them that. What I, and many others like me, take exception to, is being treated like a fool at excessive margins.
I prefer to buy local and I do at every available opportunity. However, I baulk at paying over the odds prices when I know full well I can buy the exact same product over the net for two-thirds or half the price paid here. So more often than not I end up buying from overseas. Last week I was in the absurd situation where I couldn't source an Australian artist here in Australia but had the choice to buy the album from English, French and American websites.
In NSW, the new Liberal Government has, against other advice, scrapped retrospectively the enormously Solar Rebates program. The take up of which far exceeded any state or federal government projection. They underestimated the willingness of ordinary folk to try and mitigate their own carbon emissions. The Federal Labor government eventually scrapped the program (despite Peter Garrett trying to continue it) because of cost blow outs. The scheme, at its height, cost less than a tenth of the total annual subsidies going to coal powered generators.
The government, somehow, missed something really important. Rather than seeing a groundswell of support for a massively successful program to generate clean energy (and thousands of jobs) amongst Australian households, it focused instead on the cost blow-out of a massively successful initiative, because of the constant nagging of a child-like opposition and a deliberately antagonistic News Ltd.
They had forgotten about us. Again. Not just the Government, but the Opposition and mainstream media too.
Too many times there are stories like this. The Liberal party, insistent that they look after businesses and forget about actual voters, passed Workchoices, which was their ultimate undoing.
Gerry Harvey, one of Australia's richest men, insists he is a lowly battler 'like us' whilst gouging consumers on margins that would make a 7Eleven envious and outsourcing services and manufacturing to developing nations to save even further on costs.
The list goes on.
Quite frankly I've had a gut full.
We are more than Consumers. We think and breath and create and shit and fuck and cry and laugh.
We dream. We get angry.
And the time seems right to start harnessing the general level of anger that is permeating the airwaves.
We should be getting angry at stores that think it's OK to charge us $40 extra for a computer game and telling them to do better.
We should be getting angry at Apple, who seem to think we are too stupid to notice a song going for 99cents is selling for $1.19 here despite the value of the Aussie dollar.
We should be getting livid with rage when a pair of shoes cost $300 here when I can buy the same pair of shoes for $80 in the US.
Perhaps Getup can make itself useful.
Because if they don't make themselves useful, it is time we made ourselves useful and let our politicians, retailers and media outlets know that we aren't the idiots that we are supposed to be.
And politics between the two main parties appears to have become nothing more than a competition over who can impress the far right Shock Jocks on talk-back radio.
The driving force behind the increasing enmity? We have been left behind.
Our elected representatives have failed to take into account the interests of those they represent and instead harken to the lobbyists, corporations and interest groups who mangle the legislation until they become sucklings at the government teet.
The press, those that are charged with keeping our elected officials to account, have disappeared up their navels, instead driving their own puerile agenda whilst insisting that they know best what we want.
And the corporations? They have never had our interests at heart. Corporations, big or small, exist on this planet to make money. I don't begrudge them that. What I, and many others like me, take exception to, is being treated like a fool at excessive margins.
I prefer to buy local and I do at every available opportunity. However, I baulk at paying over the odds prices when I know full well I can buy the exact same product over the net for two-thirds or half the price paid here. So more often than not I end up buying from overseas. Last week I was in the absurd situation where I couldn't source an Australian artist here in Australia but had the choice to buy the album from English, French and American websites.
In NSW, the new Liberal Government has, against other advice, scrapped retrospectively the enormously Solar Rebates program. The take up of which far exceeded any state or federal government projection. They underestimated the willingness of ordinary folk to try and mitigate their own carbon emissions. The Federal Labor government eventually scrapped the program (despite Peter Garrett trying to continue it) because of cost blow outs. The scheme, at its height, cost less than a tenth of the total annual subsidies going to coal powered generators.
The government, somehow, missed something really important. Rather than seeing a groundswell of support for a massively successful program to generate clean energy (and thousands of jobs) amongst Australian households, it focused instead on the cost blow-out of a massively successful initiative, because of the constant nagging of a child-like opposition and a deliberately antagonistic News Ltd.
They had forgotten about us. Again. Not just the Government, but the Opposition and mainstream media too.
Too many times there are stories like this. The Liberal party, insistent that they look after businesses and forget about actual voters, passed Workchoices, which was their ultimate undoing.
Gerry Harvey, one of Australia's richest men, insists he is a lowly battler 'like us' whilst gouging consumers on margins that would make a 7Eleven envious and outsourcing services and manufacturing to developing nations to save even further on costs.
The list goes on.
Quite frankly I've had a gut full.
We are more than Consumers. We think and breath and create and shit and fuck and cry and laugh.
We dream. We get angry.
And the time seems right to start harnessing the general level of anger that is permeating the airwaves.
We should be getting angry at stores that think it's OK to charge us $40 extra for a computer game and telling them to do better.
We should be getting angry at Apple, who seem to think we are too stupid to notice a song going for 99cents is selling for $1.19 here despite the value of the Aussie dollar.
We should be getting livid with rage when a pair of shoes cost $300 here when I can buy the same pair of shoes for $80 in the US.
Perhaps Getup can make itself useful.
Because if they don't make themselves useful, it is time we made ourselves useful and let our politicians, retailers and media outlets know that we aren't the idiots that we are supposed to be.
