Australia is like the Saudi Arabia of mining. Such a big continent with very few people. Politically stable and smart enough to exploit itself and keep most of the profits. The lucky country indeed.
Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.
Maybe we’re a bit better now (particularly after the last election) but it doesn’t really mean what everyone thinks it means. Basically, historically, we have failed upwards. Still, there are very few places I’d desire to live in
But we do have a first rate health care system, high employment, decent weather and relatively stable government. We didn’t do anything stupid like leave important regional organisations, nor have we ever had our leader forment violent insurrection.
For example: Australian Gas consumers pay more to use natural gas in Australia, than people in Japan, using Australian LNG.
Would it be fair to call that blatant corruption, or could some argument be made that it is not?
In other words, only if you're lying is it corruption. Costs are not like for like, not even close. The gas itself is relatively cheap. The infrastructure and OpEx is not.
...I feel like our governments had the same neoliberal consultants come in.
The sawmills were promptly closed, and the raw logs exported in bulk to Japan and China as a form of protectionism / subsidised employment. They take the inefficiencies to keep portions of their population employed that might otherwise not be.
Then there's the fact that nearly all of our dairy exports are milk powder. It's hardly value add.
Great book. Written in the 60s but it still holds today.