Australia faces interconnected crises as cost of living, climate, tech and inequality fuel public despair

Who’s feeling overwhelmed?

Going to the supermarket and petrol station was already stressful. Now interest rates have gone up, with another increase predicted, and Christmas is coming.

The cost of insurance is already horrendous. Now the El Niño is looming, making what should be carefree summer holidays an exercise in risk management for many Australians.

The tech bros already had too much power. Now AI is threatening our jobs, and potentially our very existence, while the information ecosystem is rife with AI slop that’s manipulating us into hating one another.

The wealth gap is yawning, and so is the anger over it, especially among younger generations. Rightly.

People are getting mugged in public or find intruders in their home, and migrants who work their guts out to underpin our economy in everything from transport to childcare and beyond are unfairly getting the blame.

The geopolitical environment is terrifying. The domestic political environment is uninspiring and as a result is leaning Trumpian.

And, if ever there was an emoji for failure, state governments can’t even fix the potholes. Hands up who’s blown a tyre? (Hello Victorians.)

Arguably, all of this is manifesting in the escalating mental health issues, gambling harm, resulting domestic violence and the broader antisocial behaviours that affect people under pressure.

And all of those are chronically under-prioritised both in terms of prevention and response.

It is all connected. And it is objectively an absolutely hopeless state of affairs.

We wonder why people are so furious when they have totally lost control, of everything. Prices are beyond their control, inflation is beyond their control, climate change, big tech, crime, the government itself.

So how do we fix it?

First, stop treating it as a political problem.

“There’s a recognition that we will need to be seen to be more aggressive on spending,” said one Labor MP this week.

“Be seen to?”

Stop worrying about optics and think about what will make a difference to people’s lives. Because there’s not much point in holding on to government just for the sake of it.

Remember, if you can, what it’s like to feel physically sick when interest rates go up, when your credit cards are already maxed, your car is on empty and so is the fridge.

Emma Dawson, who leads Labor’s Chifley Research Centre, has also pointed to the fact that relatively well-off economists and policy wonks are generally not the people who have “lost out from decades of deregulation” and are therefore drifting to One Nation.

Similarly, the drift to Donald Trump in the US was rooted in communities whacked by globalisation, deregulation and the resulting job losses, worsening prospects and loss of both control and hope.

At the end of the day, what is government for?

To deliver wellbeing; safety and security, good health, education and an economy in which everyone can thrive. And to protect our sovereignty, including from nefarious actors manipulating public sentiment.

Yet we all but give away our stuff without returning the wealth to support and enable our own people.

The Australian Taxation Office’s latest corporate tax transparency report shows that some of the largest companies operating in Australia, including gas exporters Petronas and Kogas, are paying little or no corporate income tax on billions in revenue. Santos, which has made almost $50bn over the last decade has paid no corporate income tax over that time.

So, we allow largely multinational and blatantly extractive fossil fuel, gambling and tech companies to reap massive profits for minimal return or accountability, while families struggle.

We live in a nation of extraordinary beauty with a unique brand of resilience and optimism, yet we fail to enable everyone to enjoy it, and we are allowing it to erode.

This is not an argument about the Reserve Bank, which has one key job and limited levers to do it with. It’s a bigger question about how we look after our own.

We have, as Alex Fein from RedBridge has written, “an environment in which monopolies and duopolies are free to set their own terms, even if that means more and more people feel they cannot afford to live”.

“These participants,” she says, “feel robbed of agency: crushed at home by the cost of living, and by powers (both distant and at home) whose interests simply don’t align with theirs.”

What could government do to make a difference?

Show don’t tell.

Aside from addressing the thorny issue of government spending, reset the power imbalance between community and big corporations which is at the core of the dissatisfaction.

Start by implementing a windfall tax on export gas, properly tax and enforce regulation on big fossil fuels, big gambling and big tech, then use the proceeds to reduce the cost of childcare, tertiary education, medicines and rent via commonwealth rent assistance. All these measures would both reduce cost-of-living pressure and inflation.

And, please, fix the potholes.