The Lucky Country? Reinventing Australia

Can we reinvent the Lucky Country? Fifty years ago author Donald Horne described Australia as ‘a lucky country run by second-rate people’, adding that our leaders are mostly unaware of events that surround them. The good fortune continued when our wide brown land proved to contain bountiful resources of saleable minerals, allowing successive generations of second-rate leaders to create an illusion of economic progress by liquidating those assets. But a crisis is approaching, driven by irresponsible encouragement of population growth rates typical of poor developing countries. In this polemic work, Ian Lowe will assess the state of Australia and whether we can retain our status of the Lucky Country.

Professor Ian Lowe AO is emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane, as well as being an adjunct professor at Sunshine Coast University and Flinders University. His previous books include A Big Fix, Living in the Hothouse, A Voice of Reason: Reflections on Australia and Bigger or Better? Australia’s Population Debate.