Indeed - I think many Australians fail to recognize their good fortune because by and large they had nothing to do with it. It just happened in a far off part of the country without them noticing.
And it's nothing new. In 1964 Donald Horne penned a book "The Lucky Country", which caused many Australians to start referring to Australia as "The Lucky Country". The bit they miss is that the full quote was.
"Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."
Ouch! It's a bit harsh, in that Australia does punch above its weight in some areas (eg. excellent radio astronomy program and some very good medicos). It's spot on for other areas though, such as the majority of business and political leadership. One gets the feeling that the things that succeed in Australia do so in spite of the leadership, not because of it.
Exactly! One of the less-discussed effects of 'Dutch Disease' is that it creates a political class who are determined to capture the inflow of new money and distribute it for their own needs.
The thing I get frustrated about is that people continuously say 'look we're better than Japan or the USA or the UK'. But what I want to say is 'well, why aren't we the richest country on the planet with the highest standard of living for all?'. Comparing yourself to mediocre performance just leads to reversion to the mean because people -as you say - become second rate and share in the luck, convincing themselves it was their wise stewardship that made the luck happen.
when you say 'political leadership', are you including things like the world-first legislated 8-hour work day? The world-second women's vote? Or more recent world firsts, like the mining profits tax? Australia has it's downsides (like the WAP that only ceased half a century ago) but it's a pretty progressive nation, if you bother to compare it to other nations rather than utopia. Where are the other powerful, inspiring leaders? There's nothing unusually bad about ours.
Our exceptionalism began before the mining boom. Australia has been growing more or less continuously for decades, in spite of other crises and setbacks. It's a story of sensible reforms being progressively applied with an eye to the long term.
Aside from mining companies (which were still a huge part of Australia's economy before the 'mining boom'), Australia is also flush with other natural resources (farmland, fisheries, petroleum, etc. etc.) in a way that is hugely significant compared to its population. 100 years ago, very few of these could be easily exported. Now, most of them can..
I'm sorry, but I just really dont buy this line that somehow Australia has been much better 'managed' than other countries over a long period. I see very little to support this at all other than extremely vague inferences....
> I see very little to support this at all other than extremely vague inferences....
It's not about vague inferences, it's about clear policy decisions.
1. We floated our currency before that became the norm.
2. We have an open and totally independent central bank which telegraphs its intentions to avoid mysticism.
3. We have very low or no tariffs on almost all trade, including agriculture.
4. Compulsory superannuation means we will not face a pensions crisis in future, unlike almost every other developed economy.
5. A long series of microeconomic reform and deregulation.
6. Low sovereign debt. It got down to zero for a few years. The electorate has no appetite for debt and out debt levels are rounding errors by international standards.
The argument that it's all down to geography is demonstrably false. 100 years ago Australia had the same relative wealth as Argentina. Similar economic profiles, comparable population and so on. Today our countries are very different.
Yes - As an Australian I can see that we are turning more and more into a high income country that seems unaffordable for members of other high income countries (Switzerland 10 years ago perhaps?).
However, we must realise that as Australians we have very little to do with it, its natural resources in general (agriculture, minerals, the ocean, etc. - there's very little that we are missing) and a relatively low population that make us rich.
With wealth comes complacency, bad government, and probably self-righteousness, however on a positive side hopefully it will at least mean the end of the perpetual 'brain drain' of the last 100 years to the UK and other countries.
Hardly; agriculture and mining _combined_ make up 10% of GDP. 68% of Australian GDP comes from the services sector. These figures courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the year 2006. Agriculture and mining do make up 57% of exports however, thus keeping the trade balance on keel.
2006 and 2011 might be massively different in terms of GDP makeup. You also forget to mention that much of those services are underpinned by the money generated from the export industries.