Walking up Panepestimiou in central Athens, the busy main artery connecting Syntagma with Omonia Square, the noise of the demonstration grew louder.

“It’s the best thing that could have happened. There will now be a very rigid set of rules over the fiscal management of the country. The rampant excesses of the past can be put under some sort of control. There’ll be more industrial action and attempted disruption, but those people are totally out of touch with reality. They’re irrelevant. People don’t want to strike. People want to take money home to feed their families.” – Perth born Nicholas Geronimos – Budget Tourism Accomodation

As I turned the corner by the metro I saw scores of anarchists carrying red and black flags, communists with banners held high.

Flanked by police in full riot gear, the shuffling procession filed past a bank. With shutters down, it was within easy kicking distance of the demonstrators on the left hand side of the march. A few of the crowd took the opportunity to hammer loudly on its metal defences.

One of a group of young men taunted their police escorts who stood just metres away, gesturing obscenely, goading the officers to react.

Another night in downtown Athens, another demonstration.

Another sign of resistance by some Greeks, albeit a vociferous minority, to the reforms that the government has embarked on to meet the terms of the bailout plan.

Yesterday the periptera went on strike. Today it was the taxi drivers. Last week tens of thousands of civil servants called a strike – all these groups answering the call of their unions to defy the government’s plans to heal the debt-ridden economy.

But if you look beyond the diatribes of the union leaders, the leftist politicos, and the youths who want to pick fights with the police, there’s another story.

Most Greek citizens want a change for the better, and know that change comes at a cost.

Eva Zampetaki spent her childhood in Melbourne. Her father, a carpenter, took the family to Australia from Heraklion in 1969. Eva returned to Greece as a teenager and now manages an electrical shop and repairs business with her husband in the village of Episkopi, in eastern Crete.

Eva’s seen Greece’s economic problems grow since the adoption of the Euro in 2002.

“The cost of living has doubled. Food, everything. With 50 Euros, what used to be 17000 Drachmas… I could live for a month on that. Now 50 Euros doesn’t go far at all. There needs to be change. Some people can make a lot of noise but they and the strikes are not helping,” she says.

Brisbane-born Barbara Samantouros owns a company that manufactures greenhouses and livestock shelters for the agricultural market in Greece and the Balkans. With the company’s income partly dependent on cash received by Greece from the EU, Barbara’s business suffered in 2009.

“The government still hadn’t paid out the EU program subsidies it had promised to pay by the end of the year. Fortunately, they are now. Doing business at this time has become a real challenge. Our suppliers have been hit hard and are struggling to stay afloat,” she says.

Despite the scale of Greece’s problems, Barbara remains optimistic.

“This is our last chance for Greece to take her place in the European Union. People are realising we need to change, that there is no other way out. Once they come to terms with the fact there is no alternative, they will turn the page.”

Perth-born Nicholas Geronimos, Athens’ budget tourist accommodation pioneer, believes that acceptance of the EU-IMF loans is a major step forward.

“It’s the best thing that could have happened. There will now be a very rigid set of rules over the fiscal management of the country. The rampant excesses of the past can be put under some sort of control. There’ll be more industrial action and attempted disruption, but those people are totally out of touch with reality. They’re irrelevant. People don’t want to strike. People want to take money home to feed their families.”

Nick too is having to pay a price as a result of additional costs.

“Of course price increases are costing businesses like mine – interest rates have gone up, VAT has gone up by 2 percent, it’s now 21 percent, which means we’ve had to lay off a member of staff.”

Aussie-born Stathis Paraskevopoulos is also feeling the pinch.

“Working in the private sector, I’m having to finance the government debt,” says Stathis, who works in Athens for a London based film distribution company.

Stathis points to the effects he has seen in recent months.

“We’re seeing inflationary trends. Very small businesses are closing down one after another. I see it on the street. My local periptero says that things are going back to the old days, people giving IOUs.”

When asked if he empathises at all with those taking industrial action, Stathis doesn’t pull any punches.

“I don’t empathise with civil servants in Greece. There’s a psychology of the nation which has always been dependent on the government. Everyone has somehow linked their survival to government funds.”

Does Stathis believe that a significant proportion of Greek society now acknowledge that things just have to change?

“No, I don’t think so. People are going to find loopholes and still continue to operate they way they did. Three or four generations down I’m not sure what is going to happen, but I don’t think there will be any short-term change.”

Stathis Paraskevopoulos’ message may be pessimistic, but having been resident in Greece for almost 20years, realistic might be the more appropriate adjective.