It’s no secret that I’m dismayed by the behaviour of some people in this country. Frankly, many who should know better.
I’ve been writing about the changes I’m seeing in Australian society for some years now. And I’ve made many posts on here about the growing hostility, intolerance & apparent abandonment of what I once considered basic standards of behaviour.
But increasingly, I’m seeing something that troubles me even more.
It’s no longer confined to political arguments, social media exchanges or ideological disagreements.
It’s becoming part of everyday life.
I walk into my local supermarket & hear announcements warning customers that abuse towards staff will not be tolerated. I’ve seen that abuse myself. And staff have told me it’s getting worse.
I telephone businesses & hear recorded messages delivering much the same warning.
I visit my local medical centre & see notices reminding patients that abusive behaviour towards staff is unacceptable.
And yesterday, at my local veterinary surgery, I encountered the same message. When I asked the receptionist about it, she confirmed that abuse towards staff is increasing.
For God’s sake, it’s a veterinary clinic!!
A place where people devote their working lives to caring for animals. And even there, staff are having to remind people that abuse will not be tolerated.
What on earth is happening to us?
We’ve reached a point where businesses, medical practices & veterinary surgeries feel compelled to remind adults that they shouldn’t abuse the people providing them with a service.
When did that become something, we needed to be told?
Then there’s the shoplifting & theft from businesses that I see openly applauded on platforms such as Facebook & X.
Apparently, if a business is sufficiently profitable, or its prices sufficiently unpopular, stealing from it becomes justifiable in some people’s minds.
And worse, theft isn’t confined to large corporations. Small businesses, many already struggling to stay afloat, are also victims.
Since when did disliking a business become a moral defence for dishonesty? And when did it become acceptable to walk in, take whatever you want & walk out without paying?
I must have missed the memo on that one.
And what does it say about us when people not only excuse that behaviour but publicly applaud it?
I’m not suggesting that everyone behaves this way. Far from it. But far too many do. And I am questioning why behaviour that would once have attracted widespread condemnation is increasingly being rationalised, excused or even celebrated.
And these concerns aren’t confined to my own observations.
We’ve had repeated warnings from ASIO about the growing threat of politically motivated violence, including the role of online radicalisation & inflammatory rhetoric.
According to figures reported in The Australian, the Australian Federal Police investigated 1,067 threats against Australian elected officials in 2025–26, more than 100 above the previous year.
Think about that. More than a thousand threats investigated in a single year against people elected to represent us.
And we’ve reached a point where politicians are increasingly being told that threats against their lives are simply part of the job.
How did we get here?
I’m not suggesting that someone abusing a supermarket employee is necessarily motivated by the same forces as someone threatening a politician. But these are all behaviours that raise fundamental questions about the standards we’re prepared to accept.
It saddens me enormously.
And it raises a question I don’t think we ask nearly enough.
What is happening to our sense of personal responsibility? What has happened to honesty, dignity & our sense of right & wrong?
We hear plenty about the anger in our society. The frustration. The economic pressures. The distrust of institutions. The dissatisfaction with politicians.
And yes, those frustrations are real.
But frustration may explain anger. It does not justify abuse, intimidation, dishonesty or cruelty.
I’m increasingly concerned that we’ve blurred that distinction.
There are undoubtedly people who benefit from encouraging division, resentment & hostility. Political opportunists, ideological agitators & those who profit from the attention that outrage generates.
Social media provides an extraordinarily effective platform for amplifying their messages.
But we cannot lay all the blame at their feet.
Because ultimately, people MAKE choices.
They choose what they say. They choose how they behave. They choose whether to applaud cruelty or condemn it. Whether to treat another person with respect or make that person the target of their frustration.
And I’m tired of hearing that politicians are responsible for the behaviour of people who ought to know better.
That’s not accountability. That’s an excuse. A proverbial Get Out of Jail Free card.
We can hold politicians responsible for their decisions without absolving ourselves of responsibility for our own conduct.
A society doesn’t function simply because it has laws, institutions & elected representatives.
It functions because ordinary people recognise obligations towards one another. Because there are boundaries of acceptable behaviour that don’t require a police officer, a security guard or a warning sign to enforce them.
And that’s what concerns me most.
Not simply that we’re seeing more hostility, but that we’re becoming increasingly willing to explain it away. To excuse it.
I see it daily on social media. The inevitable “but what about” defence.
But what about the politicians? What about the cost of living? What about the decisions that made people angry in the first place?
As though pointing to someone else’s failures somehow absolves an individual of responsibility for their own actions.
It doesn’t. And it never did.
We spend an extraordinary amount of time demanding accountability from the people who govern us, while becoming increasingly reluctant to demand it of ourselves.
And even as we watched the scenes of destruction reported from France over the weekend, I saw people here in Australia rushing to explain away the violence.
Blame the President. Blame the EU. Blame political decisions. Blame everyone, it seems, except those who actually committed the acts of destruction.
Of course, people are entitled to question political decisions. They’re entitled to protest. They’re entitled to demand change.
But none of that gives anyone the right to destroy businesses, attack emergency workers or set fire to buildings.
Understanding the causes of anger is not the same as excusing the consequences of someone’s actions.
And yet, increasingly, that is precisely what we’re doing.
Whether it’s someone abusing a supermarket employee, stealing from a business, threatening a medical receptionist, or destroying property in the name of protest, the principle remains the same.
We are responsible for our own behaviour.
And if we continue finding excuses for conduct, we would once have condemned, the question isn’t simply what our society is becoming.
Perhaps it’s what we’re allowing it to become.
