The AFR View
The dream decade that produced modern Australia
The 1960s were a decade of optimism during which Australia swapped the sheep’s back for massive resources industries. Ironically, some of it was financed by an old foe.
“It was obvious long before the end of 1959 that in 1960 Australia should enter its most exciting decade,” The Australian Financial Review quoted economist Douglas Copland as saying a couple of years later.
But the 1960s started with a credit squeeze from Australia’s new stand-alone central bank and a call on International Monetary Fund reserves. The business and political reaction was “hostile and spontaneous”, reported the Financial Review.
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