The Great Australian Dream is Over

That was the title of a talk I heard last year on radio national 621 by an economist who presented a paper to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney last year.

With Ford Holden Toyota announcing their withdrawal from manufacturing in this country and Qantas on its knees, the talk and title rings true.

I'm not surprised at the demise of the car makers. For years it seems to me most of the new cars I see on the road are Mazdas and Hyundais. Plenty of Hi Lux and Cruisers but it's Camrys that are built here and they don't sell well. My most recent purchase is a Renault, the two prior work vehicles were Suzukis, and Lib drives a Hyundai, after two Subarus. And in recent times I've flown Jetstar, Tiger and Virgin, but I can't recall going Qantas since way back.

I have no training in marketing but I know that people will buy on price and value for the most part. In my case it is a necessity. I couldn't afford a Holden or Ford while there were cheaper vehicles to do the same job that were more economical to run to boot, and better designed. OK maybe with not as much grunt but who would care about that in most circumstances, except a moron.

There's a lot of bleating going on. The trouble with Australians is they are so busy running around telling each other and the world how great they are that they wouldn't know their arse from their front. The only reason it's such a great country is that we've had only about two hundred years since we dispossessed the indigenous inhabitants (who stood no chance to defend without any technology) to divvy up seven and a half million square kms and immense natural resource including gold iron oil copper nickel uranium coal gas, massive timber reserves along the Great Divide, fishing all around us, and huge areas of productive grazing and cropping land. We are still subdividing and ransacking and even fracking. Huge wealth has resulted in the land of the 'fair go', and everybody seems to want as much of it as they can get.

Half the country has been on strike in recent times or taking prolonged industrial action including Qantas, the police, teachers, nurses, the ambos now. Give me more give me more, more more, more. On my recent holiday to Qld I was staggered at the number of grey nomads with their big 4X4's and caravans and luxury campervans, all retired young enough to spend their several hundred thousand dollars of retirement perks. Or $millions. The radio constantly has ads for people to seminars for investment schemes of multiple investment properties to negatively gear interest against tax so that little if any is paid. In the meantime home ownership has become a dream only for a large percentage of our young people.

Australia is, I fear, by and large, becoming a nation of greedy people who whinge and grizzle at a few cents a litre rise in petrol price and who resent paying tax and welfare to the unfortunate.

Of course this is a generalization and I know many people who are not like this, but sadly a grim picture is emerging in our society that is appearing more and more farcical to me.

As for the economist who gave the talk, he said the three linchpins of the Great Australian Dream, A Good Steady Lifetime Job, Home Ownership, and Comfortable Retirement, were over for the majority of Australians into the future.

As for Qantas, Holden and Ford, I couldn't give a fig.

It's my children I worry about, and their children should they have any.