Australians don't know how lucky they are
A leadership threat to Julia Gillard seemed churlish, given the strong economy – but disgruntled Australians are a common breed
Paola Totaro
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 March 2013 05.00 AEST
Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard, holds conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters
Last June, Australia celebrated its 21st. No, not a birthday or coming of age, but the completion of its 21st consecutive year of economic growth. Yup, you heard right, 21 years. Of growth. 21.
While the rest of the world lurches from crisis to economic crisis, the land of Oz is powering ahead, enjoying an Aussie dollar at a record high, unemployment at near-record lows (5.4%) and basking in more sunshine than the rest of us can dream up. So what does its Labor government do? Attempt suicide.
Yesterday's move to oust Australia's Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, represents the third attempt by Kevin Rudd (and/or his supporters) to return him to the leadership – a man Gillard beat for the prime ministership in 2010. In the past 10 years, the Australian Labor party has installed and dispatched five national leaders while its nemesis, the Liberal party, has tried four different leaders in just six years.
Viewed from Europe, where national governments are planning to bail out their banks by raiding the savings accounts not just of Russian oligarchs but pensioners too, news of yet another political attack against Australia's leader smacks of a particular strain of antipodean madness. For decades, it is the British who have worn the "whingeing Poms" label. Now, it's time for Australians to accept the malcontents' mantle, because it is they who appear incapable of seeing just how lucky they are.
Complaint has become the national default position, seen in a political class – and a mainstream media – who spend more time slinging mud or knifing each other than debating and analysing national policy. No other advanced economy can come close to Australia's 21 years of growth. That period, a full generation, saw governments of both political flavours at the helm in Canberra, and is even more impressive when you remember that it spanned the dotcom boom (and bust), the crisis of 1997-1998 (remember that one?) and the global catastrophe that was the Lehman Brothers crash in 2008. Every single time, opposition parties (again of both persuasions) channelled Chicken Little, warning the sky would fall down in Australia. It didn't. It still hasn't.
Things are so damned good that the Reserve Bank is worried the strength of the national currency is harming national export markets. Aussie voters happily travel with more money in their pockets than ever before, and still they grouch about wavering national confidence, or rail against the couple of hundred sad souls who land on their shores seeking asylum.
The world over, economists talk about "the Australian model". I've sat through enough press conferences in Europe to know that there are many learned bean counters who see this continent as a great example of just how to exploit and thrive in a tumultuous global environment where economic might is turning its eyes toward Asia.
There's a chorus of voices that argue that Australia's success is a role model not only for resource-rich emerging markets like Chile and Brazil but also for many other already developed nations navigating low growth and burgeoning unemployment.
Nobody would quibble with the reality that Australia has also been lucky, riding the back of a massive boom in global commodity markets – thank you China and your seemingly insatiable appetite for iron ore. Without doubt, Australia's bubble could burst if the Chinese market and global commodity prices were to crash.
But the fact is, Australia has shown resilience in the past – and this is largely due to good economic policy. Aussie banks have been managed conservatively; none have failed, no taxpayer bail-outs have been needed. There has been no Euro-style printing of money, no pushing of interest rates down to the historic lows we have seen in the UK. The Australian government, despite public brouhaha, has held its nerve, continuing to invest and stimulating the economy to keep it aloft. At5.40%, the unemployment rate – one of the lowest in the industrialised world – is half that of Europe, never mind the horrendous 20% seen in Greece, Spain or Italy. And all the while, Australia's government debt has been chipped at: surpluses have been delivered and real money squirrelled away to tide the nation through bad times.
Surely, this should deliver government on its own. But not in Oz. Instead, Labor allowed itself to be spooked by another bad opinion poll for Gillard, the epidemic of political dread fanned by a plethora of male radio shock jocks, and a largely hostile parliamentary commentariat. And once again, it turned to sharpening the knives.
There is, of course, one thing that's going badly in Oz. But at least the Australian cricket team is standing by their captain.
• This article was amended on 22 March 2013. It previously referred to asylum seekers arriving "illegally" – that word has been removed. It also moved an incorrect reference to a 2% budget surplus. A sentence which implied that yesterday's attempt to remove Gillard was instigated by Kevin Rudd has been amended to clarify that it is the third attempt by either himself or his supporters to do so.
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