You are right to not buy it. Keep not buying the numbing narrative. You younger people need to put a stop to the insanity leading the world into more and more poverty, war and climate destruction. With you all the way.

You make some interesting points. I'm a millennial too and I remember my introduction as a late teen to our politics was in that stage of all the backstabbing shit. Rudd getting ousted by Gillard then the same in reverse. It was all pretty ridiculous and as a first time voter (would've been 2010 election) it all just felt like so this how politics works huh, they all tell at each other instead of discussing shit and they all turn on their own parties? Sooo I didn't really just leave high school behind at all, the adult world is exactly the same 😅

It is interesting to see what different PMs are remembered for from different people though. Howard (I was so young) I just remember children overboard, "war on terror" and GST. Rudd - the sorry speech - I was in yr 11 and this was the first time we started to learn about indigenous history so I do give Rudd some credit for that, I think he also enacted NBN and withdrew troops from the middle east? Gillard - NDIS (obviously an emotive topic right now, disclosure I am on the NDIS myself), Royal commission into Institutional Child Abuse, Gonski and of course the misogyny speech, Abbott carbon tax, I thought it was him that screwed up the NBN but I see others saying that was Turnbull. Turnbull - plebescite - ultimate outcome great but what a bloody mess to get there. Not sure who did the royal commission into aged care and disability, I think I stopped following closely at some point because there was a lot of talk but very little action.

I think you're right that it's too easy for politicians (and even society) to claim that change is too hard or that change has to take an excessively long time. Change IS possible, not always easy but not as difficult as people believe.

Sorry chief. This might shock you but Australia has voted against fixing housing a bunch of times.

Sounds like Labor is going to announce some changes to capital gains in the budget in a few weeks. Watch the libs, nats, and phon scream blue bloody murder about it and promise to reverse the change next election.

Ah maybe thats it, i have a vague memory of the sister being gay and being perplexed about that.

Haha, kinda melds together after a bit 😆

What are you talking about with Gillard? Didn't she try to shoot her shot while PM, get dragged through the coals by murdochs fash news, and ousted before enacting most of it?

The ego + narcissism thing was also the big problem with Rudd's government. His own party room colleagues hated him because of his ego, and he put the cross-bench offside by refusing to do any sort of compromise with them, which is what gave the LNP a clear target to criticise.

You've reminded me of the Life Well Lived - spotify podcast I listened to today. They interviewed Claude Steele a US social psychologist. Steele spoke about stereotype threat, the idea that underperformance in an activity can be brought on by the threat of confirming a stereotype about the participants own context, such as social standing, race, gender, etc).

Steele cited a mini golf study where the black and white 'elite athletes' were brought in to play one at a time. Before each started they put the white athletes under stereotype threat by saying "This mini golf course is really a standardised test of natural athletic ability. Do the best you can." By making this statement it was posited those subjects had an added mental load. To describe differently were multi-tasking. They were trying to play the course, but also thinking about whether they're confirming those stereotypes about white athletes being worse in natural ability than black athletes. This in turn makes those players play worse than average. Anyway sounded an interesting idea.

The way it relates to what you're saying is maybe Albanese being fixated on his class background is because he's feeling that stereotype threat in so many situations he dives into as PM.

Maybe the defensiveness is a result of his fear of confirming the stereotype that only 'elite' schooled or wealthy children can grow up to lead a nation. This distracting thought in turn means his mind has that multi-tasking idea interrupting his ability to perform as well as Albanese might.