I think the UK is more oppressive in some ways, and Sweden is perhaps more "Kafkaesque" (annoying, petty bureaucracy, essentially), having lived there for a bit, but part of the trouble with Aus is how isolated we are here, and how damn hard it is to get out (if you can even afford to, given CoL at the moment)...
Which the government obviously took advantage of during Covid. They know this, which is why and how they get away with what they do.
I mean, fuck, even Singapore is 5 hours from Perth, which is ~4 hours from the East Coast itself, so...
I think that plays into our psyche more than people perhaps realize.
Plus all the immigration from autocratic Asian countries (and lately, Africa) in the last few decades. That has definitely fed into it...
It's hard to imagine a more oppressive states to live in than the UK or Sweden, but then Canada and Australia keeps wanting to do worse.
I think the UK is more oppressive in some ways, and Sweden is perhaps more "Kafkaesque" (annoying, petty bureaucracy, essentially), having lived there for a bit, but part of the trouble with Aus is how isolated we are here, and how damn hard it is to get out (if you can even afford to, given CoL at the moment)...
Which the government obviously took advantage of during Covid. They know this, which is why and how they get away with what they do.
I mean, fuck, even Singapore is 5 hours from Perth, which is ~4 hours from the East Coast itself, so...
I think that plays into our psyche more than people perhaps realize.
Plus all the immigration from autocratic Asian countries (and lately, Africa) in the last few decades. That has definitely fed into it...