Selling dirt to China really skews these numbers....and as a Canadian I should know.
"Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."
Ouch! It's a bit harsh, in that Australia does punch above its weight in some areas (eg. excellent radio astronomy program and some very good medicos). It's spot on for other areas though, such as the majority of business and political leadership. One gets the feeling that the things that succeed in Australia do so in spite of the leadership, not because of it.
It's interesting to note, if you say "The Luck Country" to Aussies under about 25 years old, they have no idea what you are talking about.
The thing I get frustrated about is that people continuously say 'look we're better than Japan or the USA or the UK'. But what I want to say is 'well, why aren't we the richest country on the planet with the highest standard of living for all?'. Comparing yourself to mediocre performance just leads to reversion to the mean because people -as you say - become second rate and share in the luck, convincing themselves it was their wise stewardship that made the luck happen.
However, we must realise that as Australians we have very little to do with it, its natural resources in general (agriculture, minerals, the ocean, etc. - there's very little that we are missing) and a relatively low population that make us rich.
With wealth comes complacency, bad government, and probably self-righteousness, however on a positive side hopefully it will at least mean the end of the perpetual 'brain drain' of the last 100 years to the UK and other countries.
I'm sorry, but I just really dont buy this line that somehow Australia has been much better 'managed' than other countries over a long period. I see very little to support this at all other than extremely vague inferences....
It's not about vague inferences, it's about clear policy decisions.
1. We floated our currency before that became the norm.
2. We have an open and totally independent central bank which telegraphs its intentions to avoid mysticism.
3. We have very low or no tariffs on almost all trade, including agriculture.
4. Compulsory superannuation means we will not face a pensions crisis in future, unlike almost every other developed economy.
5. A long series of microeconomic reform and deregulation.
6. Low sovereign debt. It got down to zero for a few years. The electorate has no appetite for debt and out debt levels are rounding errors by international standards.
The argument that it's all down to geography is demonstrably false. 100 years ago Australia had the same relative wealth as Argentina. Similar economic profiles, comparable population and so on. Today our countries are very different.
Policies and institutions matter.
"How well" and economy is going correlates well to exports.
Agriculture and mining do make up 57% of exports however, thus keeping the trade balance on keel.
Mining makes up 47% of the total - agriculture as a whole is smaller than Gold alone, and roughly the size of our crude petroleum exports (I never realize that!). See http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/trade/trade-at-a-glance-...