ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
On my street, the cafe still opens at six, but only three days a week. The chalkboard out the front has not been updated since Christmas. It still advertises a vegan banana bread that no one remembers making. Inside, the coffee tastes fine, but it takes longer to arrive, and the man behind the machine apologises more than he used to. He tells me his daughter is doing Year 12 and helping out before school. She's still learning how to froth the milk without burning it. This is not said proudly. It is simply stated, like the cooler morning weather.
Across the road, the pharmacy shuts for lunch now. A handwritten sign explains this is due to "staffing". The word has been underlined twice, as if to say we have tried but nobody wants to work anymore. When you do catch it open, the shelves are neat but thinner. You wait. Everyone waits. Australians have rediscovered waiting.
The government says this is resilience.
On the evening news, Prime Minister Hanson appears most nights. She stands in front of flags and says the same thing, with minor variations. Australia, she tells us, is the greatest and most beautiful country on earth. Stronger than ever. More independent. More ourselves. The cameras linger just long enough for this to feel reassuring as she nods and smiles, before cutting to the Big Bash, which is now down to three teams.
This week's scandal concerns a hot mic, a visiting New Zealand delegation, and a word that has since been described as "out of context". Did the Prime Minister call her Kiwi counterpart a 'bald retard' or not? Hanson brushes it off. An AI fake, she says. Deepfake nonsense. The video circulates anyway. Breakfast radio debates whether it’s real, whether it matters and whether New Zealand should apologise for being 'gay'. By lunchtime, everyone has moved on.
Housing, for a time, did what everyone hoped it would do. Rents softened. The rental panic subsided. People stopped bidding against thirty strangers for two-bedroom shitboxes next to train lines and under flightpaths that had not been upgraded since the introduction of polymer banknotes. Auctioneers lost their bark. Their little red dog dick is now firmly back in the penile garage. Then they lost their jobs. Developers stopped answering emails. Construction slowed, then stalled, then quietly vanished from entire suburbs. The shortage did not end. It just changed shape.
My neighbour bought in 2024. Eight hundred thousand dollars for a brick house with a lemon tree and a mortgage that never quite leaves his mind. It is there, on the shoulder, with every tap of their ING card. The one Barefoot told them to get, they take a lot of his advice now. Their equity has not moved in six years. On paper, he has lost nothing. In reality, inflation has eaten it. He no longer checks property apps. He checks interest rates, petrol prices and whether his workplace still has the lights on when he arrives in the morning. He feels safe for now, his employer uses Lenovo Thinkpads. Every Apple-based business is currently in liquidation.
Aged care is where the change is most visible and least discussed. Facilities still operate, technically. The brochures are glossy. The foyers smell faintly of disinfectant and resignation. Staff turnover is constant. Residents are helped less often but thanked more loudly. Families visit longer, not because they want to, but because someone has to. They sit, with their elder, who has soiled their nappy. They press the buzzer and wait. Nobody comes, but nobody is going to change the nappy themselves. This happens every time this happens. The government runs ads praising carers as "the backbone of the nation". No one can quite work out who, exactly, is doing the caring.
Home care packages exist mostly as an idea. Waitlists stretch. Calls go unanswered. When someone does arrive, they are usually new, earnest, and gone within months. Older Australians are learning to lower their expectations. This, too, is framed as strength.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme still exists, officially. The acronym remains. The website is live. The language has shifted. Supports are now described as "outcomes". Eligibility is "streamlined". Assessments are "fairer". Entire categories of assistance have been reclassified as non-essential, a word that does a great deal of work.
Cuts come quietly. Press conferences are rare. When asked, ministers explain that the scheme had become unsustainable, rorted by enemies of the state, out of control. This is said with confidence and usually without numbers. The people affected do not appear on television. This is partly because they are hard to film, and partly because the government has made it very clear that coverage of individual cases is "unhelpful" and risks undermining public confidence. Most outlets comply.
Families notice first. Support workers stop turning up. Plans are reassessed downward. Appeals take months, then years. Some people lose services altogether and are told this is empowering. Independence, it turns out, can be imposed.
There is a growing emphasis on participation. On contribution. On work. The best for of support is a job. Government campaigns celebrate disabled Australians "getting back out there", usually pictured smiling in high-vis vests, holding brooms, scanning groceries or packing boxes. The implication is gentle but unmistakable. These are jobs that need doing. These are people who are here.
Commentators begin asking questions. Why, they wonder aloud, should Australians be struggling to find workers when there is an entire cohort "doing nothing"? The phrasing is unfortunate, but it sticks. Panels nod. The word dignity is used often, mostly by people who will never be subject to it. Trial programs roll out. They are voluntary, officially. Participation is encouraged. Payments are adjusted accordingly. Some people find the work grounding. Many do not. Complaints are framed as resistance to change. Deaths are explained as an inevitability. The story moves on.
The current Minister for Health and Aged Care, Disability and the NDIS, is a former used car dealer from Goodna who refuses to take his hat off in the chamber.
Universities have been right-sized. Some campuses have been consolidated online. This is a polite word for empty. Lecture theatres echo. Research has been deprioritised. Vice-Chancellors appear occasionally on television to explain that excellence no longer needs to be global. Local is enough now. No one asks what happens to the people who used to come here to study.
Hospitals function in the way boats function with one oar. They move, but slowly, and in circles. Waiting rooms are fuller. Nurses are older. Junior doctors burn out earlier. The government thanks them constantly. Gratitude has replaced staffing. They offer higher wages but at what cost? They're framed as ungrateful and selfish for wanting to work 50 hours a week.
Food delivery still exists, technically. The apps remain. The photos look the same. But riders are fewer. Fees are higher. Sometimes the app suggests you cook instead, you fat fuck. This is described as a cultural correction. Convenience, it turns out, required people.
In Canberra, the Cabinet has expanded. Barnaby Joyce, newly energised after a hair transplant, gastric bypass surgery and the quiet acquisition of Goonoo Goonoo station via one of Gina Rinehart's Singapore-based holding companies for services rendered. Barnaby holds seven portfolios. He speaks often about responsibility, resilience and the bush. He looks well-rested. The press gallery notes the transformation politely and moves on.
The economy is growing, according to Treasury. Charts are released. Lines trend gently upwards. GDP per capita is not mentioned. When it is, it is described as "technical". Super funds send emails reminding members that long-term horizons matter, even if the present feels unusually long.
Wages rose briefly. Prices rose faster. This was explained as an adjustment, pain before the gain. Some people benefited. Many didn’t. The gap between those who own assets and those who rely on income widened, but more politely. There are fewer Teslas now. They are subject to the Luxury Car Tax now. There's more utes. More people driving cars they planned to replace but decided to keep "another year or two" or they just get a loan to buy Chinese-made car.
The immigrants are gone. This is said plainly, like noting the tide is out. Their absence is not dramatic. It is cumulative. A thousand small inefficiencies stacking up until the system creaks. A missing nurse here. A closed restaurant there. A care visit that never arrives. None of it feels like collapse. It feels like attrition, like the Chinese have put in a naval blockade of our island home. Where are those fucking submarines when you need them!
Politics has settled into something calmer and harsher at the same time. With no obvious lever left to pull, the government talks more about values. Strength. Fairness. Doing more with less. The Opposition agrees with most of it, just not the tone. The teals are now in a Coalition, their defacto leader is Dr Sophie Scamps, who does a good job. Elections still happen. They are quieter now. People vote, then go home. Some states are considering the unthinkable. In Victoria, there's serious discussion about seceding from the Commonwealth. Queensland says they will go to war if they do.
At the cafe, the chalkboard finally changes. The vegan banana bread is gone. In its place, Anzac biscuits. The girl behind the counter smiles when she hands it over. She's graduated with her degree, with a pass average. She can't find a job. She looks tired. Her Dad died from pneumonia in the hallway of a public hospital. She's running the cafe now while she tries to work out what to do next.
This is how we are living now.
