Yet the sentiment has now burgeoned that her luck is running out (see
Garnaut 2013). The most recent data on performance is discouraging: despite
her exemption from the Great Recession, Australia’s measured unemploy-
ment rate in 2015 materially exceeded that of the USA.^21 Even more remark-
able, despite her economy racing ahead while that of the USA crept, Australia’s
government deficit, as a proportion of national income in the current year, is
projected to be barely different from that of the USA.^22 Looming over public
discourse is the apprehension that Australian exceptionalism amounts to an
indulgence of simplicity and fancy, made possible only by lenient economic
circumstances; and in this sunny ease, the adult organs of calculation and
restraint have atrophied, and a regression into a national infantilism has
begun (see Kelly 2014). This sort of diagnosis has been challenged (see
Edwards 2014). Yet whatever the correct diagnosis, in the current precarious
circumstances, it is worth taking the measure of the nature of Australia’s
mettle.
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(^21) During 2015, the unemployment rate averaged at 6.1 per cent in Australia, and 5.3 percent in
the USA. 22
Australia’s federal government deficit is projected to be 2.3 percent of GDP in 2015/16; that of
the USA, 2.2 percent infiscal 2016.
William O. Coleman