2023? There’s every reason to be optimistic

Cheer up, doomscrollers. For Australia, the year ahead looks promising.

That’s the spirit: there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic

In some respects January 2023 is a remarkable time in modern Australian history. We are coming out of pandemic. Australia is once again connected to the rest of the world by the free flow of immigrants and visitors. And there seems to be a thawing in tensions with our primary trading partner. There is every reason to be optimistic about the future.

Of course there are problems that beset our nation, and which will carry forth into this year and no doubt beyond. But problems have always been, and will ever be, part of the human experience. No time in history is free of challenges. Indeed in the pantheon of history’s toughest years the coronavirus and the current crop of geopolitical tensions may not be the best of times but neither are they the worst. And even during the worst of times there are places that operate oblivious to calamities elsewhere.

There’s a temptation at the beginning of the year to focus on what made headlines, to see only what went wrong, to listen to doomsayers many of whom seem to revel in the prediction of the end of times. And yet here we are in Australia having survived drought, bushfire, flood, pandemic still offering many (but by no means all) access to an unequalled quality of life.

For many years I listened to and flinched with these prognostications of doom and gloom. My view changed with the global financial crisis in 2008. Here was an event triggered by the misdoings of Wall Street that was surely going to reverberate across the Pacific, flatten the Australian economy, and evaporate our way of life.

Not so. What actually happened after the GFC was quite remarkable: Australia was carried forth on a wave of (largely China-fuelled) demand for resources that delivered a mini boom within a long boom that had prevailed since the early 1990s. For many Australians these were the best of times. In fact, Australia navigated these turbulent years not so much because of our brilliance but because of our resources. Plus at this time we amped up the foreign student intake and invested further in housing, travel and quality of life.

And so here we are a decade and a half since China first ratcheted their demand for our iron ore and, once again, we are wondering if the year ahead holds a recession that will stymie our way of life. But again I say, have faith in the future of Australia. We are a young country without the demographic issues of China, Japan, South Korea let alone Russia. Migrants, backpackers and tourists are returning to our nation and easing the skills shortage. We must thank China for prompting us to broaden our trading base because without this wake-up call Australia might have been held captive to a single dominant trade relationship. We retain a strong and warm relationship with the US and we’re building alliances with Japan, India, South Korea and others. We remain close to the UK and, together with our good friends across the ditch, the Kiwis, we offer a good quality of life in a remote part of the world. Antipodean isolation in uncertain times is a mightily attractive prospect for some.

With the passing of each year it is easy to be beguiled by the prophets of doom. And to be fair these prognosticators are telling stories to a market prepped and wearied with stories of war, plague, flood and human malfeasance at corporate and military levels which all combine to erode confidence in the future of humanity.

But what summations of the trials and transgressions of the year just past fail to include is evidence of how individual Australians have adapted, pressed forward, managed to survive and even thrive in troubled times. Despite a cavalcade of calamities, many Australians by my reckoning have remained personally fulfilled if not downright happy with everyday life, content in their families, active in their communities. Here is the real measure of the quality of life for the Australian people over 2022 and I expect much the same to prevail for 2023 too.

Of course we need to keep a watchful eye on the megatrends shaping our nation but equally we should remain confident that there are few, if any, places on earth that offer more opportunity and a better quality of life than Australia. Bring on 2023.