JENI O’DOWD: Aussies are tired of woke box-ticking that’s now more about cultural compliance than respect

When I was chatting with a friend last week, she admitted she and her husband were worried.

Not about interest rates or the ridiculous price of fruit, but about their friends. People they know, sensible people, who were planning to vote for hard-right populist Pauline Hanson.

Not because they’d read One Nation’s policies, but because they’re sick to death of how woke Australia has become, and Hanson is the only one promising to wind it back.

I told her it worries me too. I find it hard to believe anyone thinks a party with no experience of governing is ready to hold a significant balance of power, let alone run the country.

But it could happen.

The chat with my friend came back to me yesterday as I stood at the kitchen bench packing up yet another rental dress after yet another formal, ready to send back by Express Post.

Between “Company name” and “Street address” on the satchel, there’s a line asking for the traditional place name, if known. It’s optional, of course.

That’s the genius of modern Australia: nothing is compulsory, yet everything comes with a quiet expectation.

It’s a small thing, and on its own a perfectly nice idea which I don’t disagree with. But it’s one more box, and we are drowning in boxes.

At work, there’s unconscious bias training, reminders to add your pronouns to your email signature, and encouragement to complain to HR if someone so much as raises their voice or you feel slighted over the smallest thing.

Qantas once issued staff a guide steering them away from using “mum and dad” and “husband” and “wife”.

A university handbook suggested “chestfeeding”. A diversity group decided “guys” was a problem.

Some schools now call their Christmas concert an “end-of-year concert” and wish families “happy holidays” while councils wind back Australia Day celebrations because they are worried they will cause offence.

Employers now have a legal duty to proactively stamp out sexual harassment, which sounds sensible until you sit through the fourth compulsory module of the year and realise it’s mostly about protecting the company, not about educating anyone.

Sport has become another minefield.

Transgender women can play in some female soccer and cricket community games, even if they transitioned long after puberty. And yet if you complain, you’re treated as an ignorant transphobe.

A women-only social app took its fight all the way to the High Court over who counts as a woman. Several states now let you change the sex on your birth certificate with a form rather than a doctor.

Even the bookshelf isn’t safe. Roald Dahl’s publisher combed through his books to remove words like “fat”. Six Dr Seuss titles were withdrawn from sale. Dr Seuss was my favourite as a kid, and I loved reading his books to mine when they were little.

I don’t mind a Welcome to Country ceremony. It’s a mark of respect. But when acknowledgement happens at every Qantas landing, every meeting, and every school assembly, it starts to feel less like respect and more like a box being ticked.

None of this is compulsory, exactly. It’s just expected, which in modern Australia amounts to the same thing.

Call it compliance culture: the gentle, relentless pressure to perform the right values rather than simply hold them.

Most Australians aren’t bigots. They’re tired. They didn’t ask for any of this, nobody explained why they needed it, and anyone who rolls their eyes risks being called something worse than tired.

And tired people vote.

One Nation has topped some national primary vote polls this year, hitting 31 per cent in one Redbridge poll in May.

It won Sussan Ley’s old seat of Farrer at a by-election and took seven seats across both houses in South Australia in March. Last month, it won the State seat of Secret Harbour from Labor in Western Australia.

Of course, cost of living, housing and immigration are all doing their share of the heavy lifting.

But talk to people at the dog park or in your local cafe, and you’ll hear the same refrain my friend did: I just want someone to say enough.

The people who built this culture of boxes meant well. Many of the changes had good intentions, and some did real good.

But nobody stopped to ask how it would all land with most Australians, who now feel unheard and whose views are too easily dismissed as racism, sexism or bigotry.

Next time I send a dress back, I’ll probably fill in that extra box. But I do understand why so many Australians are ready to tick a different one.