Whinge, Whine, Grumble & Gripe

ABC 774 morning presenter Jon Faine came into the Wheeler Centre at lunchtime yesterday for the first Lunchbox/Soapbox of the year. Jon expounded on the question, ‘We are amongst the luckiest people on the planet – so why are we developing a culture of complaint?’

Jon had an op-ed on the topic published today in The Australian. In it, he wrote: “…if something goes wrong, it is always someone’s fault. ‘They’ should do ‘something’ about ‘it’. Where does this culture of blame come from? And since when did whingeing become a defining characteristic and an inseparable part of the over-invoked great Aussie spirit?”

Lunchbox/Soapbox is an old fashioned Speakers' Corner in the middle of the city at lunchtime every Thursday. Coming up in the series: Sophie Cunningham on humanity’s failures to adapt, Larissa Behrendt on why overcoming indigenous disadvantage is so hard, and Dave Graney on social networking.

So what do you think? Have we become a nation of whingers? Got a gripe about all our grumbling? Or maybe you’d like to protest that we could do with a bit more complaining? Go ahead - whinge to your heart’s content.