Australia – you’re living in it, that makes it your responsibility
By any measure Australia as a nation has made real progress across the board – from economics to social reforms. Fergus Neilson looks at where we are lagging and what we can do to make sure our concerns fall on receptive ears, capable and willing to take action.
It is clear that we are living a contradiction. On one hand, the UN’s most recent Human Development Index places Australia at number two after Norway1 (though, if we added in climate that would definitely give us the gold medal). On the other, a recent Economist article stated, of Australian politicians, that: “the current lot couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”.
The Economist clearly admires what it sees in this Lucky Country: “That Australia is successful is not in doubt. It has a prosperous economy, a harmonious and egalitarian society, an ability to accommodate immigrants, an excellent civil service, an independent central bank, a good balance of personal freedom and limited government, sensible pension arrangements, sporting prowess and a fine cuisine. With so much already in the bag, today’s politicians have an unusual opportunity to make life even better for their compatriots, born and unborn”.
Clearly, we have made measurable progress across the board. But! If there is to be further progress for our society, the statistical evidence of any shortfall needs to fall on receptive ears, capable and willing to take action.
Is it of any concern in Canberra that, in spite of clearly expressed technological ambition, Australia delivers only 14 patent filings per annum per million people2? Switzerland, Japan and Sweden deliver over 100 per million. Israel and the US are in the mid-forties. Even the UK manages 27 patent filings per annum per million.
Should it matter that, in the face of external and internal perceptions of egalitarianism, Australia’s Gini coefficient (statistical measure of the degree of income inequality) has deteriorated by close to ten percent over the last decade, and is now worse than the OECD average?
Should our voting behaviour reflect any confidence in a recent call from the Liberal/Country Party coalition for Australia to reduce the total national tax-take as a percent of GDP from its current level of around 27% down to 21%? Does this make any sense when we can see the strife that now afflicts the United States? A tax-take at 25% of GDP delivers annual tax income to US governments of around US$10,000, while total government expenditure continues at around US$18,000 per annum. As Charles Dickens might have said: “result misery”.3
Shouldn’t we be paying greater attention to, and learning from, the progress in societies like Sweden and Germany where the tax-take to GDP ratios are 47% and 40% respectively?
The measurement is clear, but response is ambiguous at best. And, response will remain ambiguous so long as political (and business) focus remains on the immediate present and debate is driven, in the words of The Economist, by a “non-stop Punch-and-Judy show promoted by talk back radio … where chat is blunt and sharp, even by Australian standards, and (from which) little thoughtful activity emerges”.
Unless attention is paid, issues will never be addressed and progress in society will be driven only by exogenous factors (the growing appetite of China and India for raw materials).
Instead, let us work to ensure mature and thoughtful leadership that has the confidence to set its own course without following in lockstep with the US (or China for that matter). Let us encourage such leadership to look to the needs of the near future and, at the very least: build world-class universities that generate minds capable of matching the world intellectually; recognize the stability and positive values that characterise more egalitarian societies; and accept that no society will progress unless its citizens and businesses are prepared to contribute to the cost of that progress.
1 OECD. Patents filed per million people, average for 2007/09. Australian data for 2008 only.
2 OECD. Patents filed per million people, average for 2007/09. Australian data for 2008 only.
3 Charles Dickens from David Copperfield (Mr Micawber): “ Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”.
Fergus Neilson is Co-founder of The Futures Project. Fergus brings a wide range of business and life skills gathered from a career in the armed forces, investment banking, the United Nations, McKinsey & Company, private equity investment and on the slopes of Mt Ventoux. Always sceptical of solutions imposed ‘top-down’ and increasingly frustrated by the default position that invariably sees cleaning equipment bought in only after the proverbial has hit the fan. Fergus can be contacted on fergus.neilson@thefuturesproject.com.
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Fergus Neilson has a wide range of business and life skills gathered from a career in the armed forces, investment banking, the United Nations, McKinsey & Company and private equity investment.
ANI
January 17, 2012 at 8:56 pm
How successful is Australia? I differ on your view in some key a
If we had a prosperous economy we would not be selling off Australia, its mines, real estate, industries etc to foreign investors in record numbers and not only in record prices. As for the immigrants they are all accommodated only a fair number of them are in detention pen for an undetermined time?
But the one I disagree with you the most is that “we had a harmonious and egalitarian society” .. if we had that we would not see the emergence and the spiraling out of control of disease, just like everywhere else!
The four friends you have in the bar at Martin Place are all concerned only with economics and they don’t seem to see the human resource. Where would all of them business people, hedge fundies and lawyers be without buyers of goods and services?
The biggest problem and the seemingly insurmountable problem from where we are standing today is health. Every year the budget has to be increased and the hospitals are full to overflowing. Yes, true if you’re a doctor or anyone in the health industry really or who has their funds in medical industries, life couldn’t be better. What a great future to see the population get sicker and sicker and sicker for longer! If the whole population got sick for at least 30% of their life time wouldn’t that be heaven! But if you are not a medico and you are an ordinary humane person then this is a hellish nightmare. You make your first business man say “when business wins, everyone wins”. This is not true. When the medical businesses win and grows to be the largest, global business monsters in the world, then the world’s population lose. Can we trust these guys to research prevention rather than cures? Can we trust them to tell the truth about the real causes of disease? I can say to you that my discovery is that the answer to this question is a big resounding NO! Disease is not what the doctors are saying. And I am not talking hypothetically nor academically. I am talking from firsthand experience, and repeated experience to perfection! I can not only make my body well these days, I can more than that “stage-manage” my physiology so that I don’t fall sick in the first place. If we have to do one thing that can really make for a successful Australia and indeed lead the world into a better future then it is that we reveal the truth about disease. Stress they say is from daily living. Nay, stress that is pathological and leads to disease arises out of toxic relationships. And not only the kind where the stabbing in the back is hindsight.. but not even seen at all; except of course when we examine the true causes of disease. I invite you to my blog at https://kyrani99.wordpress.com/ and you’ll be shocked at what hides behind the neatly characterized diseases, that look so cool in their medical boxes! I have a way to go to get to heart disease and cancer but the beginning posts sure point to foul game play! Let’s fix that and do it for all humane people around the world and not only for Australia. Then Australia will truly be great.. the greatest!