I’ve never seen Aussies so anxious about the future

Covering Australia for the BBC almost a decade ago, I made two attempts at coming up with country-defining coinage. The first was to describe Canberra as the coup capital of the democratic world, a title now obviously claimed by Westminster. The second was to argue that Australia was the lifestyle superpower of the world, a status that is now also under threat.

Unlike Donald Horne’s never-to-be-beaten The Lucky Country, I intended this tagline to be taken at face value. It seemed especially apropos during the global financial crisis, an economic meltdown that the rest of the world described, more gravely, as the Great Recession. I realised, of course, that millions of Australians never got to benefit from the “wonder from Down Under” economy, not least many First Nations people. However, at a time of global turmoil, the combination of sun, sea and soaring property prices seemed like a world-beating trifecta.

Rising sea levels are, increasingly, on Australian minds.

Those global rankings – which I never fully trust – continue to regard Australia as a lifestyle powerhouse. Fourth is where it currently ranks, behind Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands, according to Numbeo, an index that takes into account healthcare quality, housing, transportation and crime rates. Australian cities also do well in the liveability leagues, although recently locked-down Melbourne was the only one to make The Economist’s 2022 top 10 (offering proof of its unreliability). Australians, when asked to rank their general satisfaction with life, give it on average a 7.1 grade, which is higher than the OECD average of 6.7.

Yet, I wonder whether these indices paint too rosy a picture. For in all the time that I have lived in Australia, I have never known it to be so anxious about the present or so fretful about the future. In a country where property values are a barometer of the national vibe, few things obviously have quite the same buzz-kill effect as interest rates hitting a 10-year high and house prices falling.

When mortgage stress combines with cost-of-living stress, and when pay increases fail to keep pace with inflation, families struggle to tread water, still less get ahead. As Ross Gittins noted last week, the average standard of living in Australia is no better than it was 10 years ago, a lifestyle stagflation unprecedented since the end of World War II.

Two years of COVID-19, which has left us feeling burnt out and mentally fragile, has heightened the sense of anxiety and uncertainty. The monsoon effect of La Nina has not helped either. However, many of the factors contributing to the present downbeat mood predate the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the rain. When we first saw mask-wearing at the start of 2020, for instance, it was not in the Chinese province of Wuhan but rather the CBD of Sydney, which was shrouded in smog from the bushfires. The destabilisation of the Australian climate has had a destabilising effect on Australian self-confidence. Beachfront properties, once the most prized real estate in the land, now look precarious.

Breathing was an issue in Sydney well before COVID. Credit: Wolter Peeters

Country dwelling comes with a heightened threat of fire. Flood-hit Lismore offers a glimpse of the future for other vulnerable communities. Small wonder that new polling from The Australia Institute found that a record number of Australians are “very concerned” about climate change.

The strategic environment is also unsettling. Perhaps the most noticeable change from 10 years ago is the shift in attitude towards Beijing. Back then, China was the goose that laid 24-carat eggs. Now, under Xi Jinping, it has shape-shifted into a menacing dragon. The great Australian straddle between Washington and Beijing, which always required a considerable degree of double-jointedness, has become almost ergonomically impossible.

There has long been a nagging sense that Australia would find itself on the front line in the two central challenges of the 21st century: planetary warming and the rise of China; that its proximity to global problems would become more defining than its geographic remoteness. Now the abstract has become real.

Coming home to Australia in 2021 after a long break away has reminded me of returning to America on the eve of the Trump years, after a similar hiatus. Something was amiss, although it was hard to precisely identify what. But the conversations I find myself having with Australians now echo what Americans were saying 10 years ago. No longer did they believe that their children would enjoy more prosperous lives than they did. No longer did they have faith in the idea of generational progress that lies at the heart of the American dream. Instead, parents looked with foreboding to the future, which is partly why sentimentalism became such a driver of US politics.

Illustration: DionneCredit:

I am not suggesting that the political consequences for Australia will be equivalent. At the federal election, the electorate fired Scott Morrison partly because he was displaying so many “small-t” Trumpian tendencies. Nonetheless, there is a warning worth heeding: when people lose faith in a national idea, like the American or Australian dream, they can easily lose faith in national institutions.

Indeed, maybe the crisis of housing affordability faced by young Australians helps make sense of one of the most jolting polls I can ever remember seeing: a 2017 survey from the Lowy Institute which suggested that only 52 per cent of Australians aged 18-29 thought democracy was the preferable form of government.

Let us end, though, on a happier note. As I write, the clouds have parted. The sun is shining. The ocean beckons. Australia feels like Australia.

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