Sleepwalking into the future?

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Michael Stutchbury, editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review, launched Peter Hendy’s Why Australia Slept: How the Australian community sleep-walked across the decades jeopardising its abundant natural blessings (Connor Court).

Australia is in danger of sleepwalking into the future. For decades, Australia “slept” through a period of high tariff protection and heavily regulated industries. As a result, by the 1970s its relative living standards were in decline. The situation was saved by significant free-market reforms instituted from the 1980s through to the early 2000s.

Since the later-2000s, however, the country has been resting on its laurels with only minimal reform. There are danger signals everywhere, from the domestic economy to our international relations and the rise of China.