In the 1970s, a richly endowed country squandered its luck. The decade began with the 1960s mining boom optimism that had allowed Australia to get off the sheep’s back. But a “dream economy” turned into high inflation and high unemployment – stagflation.

Corporate collapses, political crises, union militancy and low population growth merged into a national malaise that weakened Australian prosperity. Amid a mismanaged second oil shock, Australia risked becoming the poor white trash of Asia, warned Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew at the decade’s end.