There’s a nasty mood festering in this state. Victoria is at war with itself

August 16, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

There’s a nasty mood festering in this state that threatens to undermine social cohesion and quality of life. It’s anger: Victoria is at war with itself.

It’s a battle waged by average people who are becoming more aggressive, rude, impatient, selfish and sometimes violent.

Shared values are being demolished. The concepts of a fair go, mutual respect, offering a helping hand, if not dead, are struggling for breath.

There’s instead a societal sourness that erupts into worsening behaviour in schools, family violence, and staff facing daily abuse or worse in hospitals, shopping centres, newsagents, dental surgeries, even vet clinics.

Why? Perhaps the rust-bucket degeneration of Victoria has stolen civic pride and replaced it with hopelessness and resentment.

Or perhaps the bitterness that has dominated modern politics, blended with the anger seeping from the lockdown era, have helped create this society in danger of cracking.

Yes, that’s dramatic. And there remain good people doing very good things out in the world. But too often, the public mood is sour and destructive.

That’s dangerous. Julie Claridge, a lawyer writing under the banner of the Centre for Independent Studies, says weakening values, and social stress are behind the obscene surge in antisemitism.

“Antisemitism should be understood as a civic warning system,” she wrote. “When prejudice becomes normalised, it signals that the shared values and institutions that hold a liberal democracy together are under........

© The Age