Author(s): Jim Chalmers

Politics

The book asks how a nation with the developed world's best economy has a dimmer view of its performance than some of the basket case economies of southern Europe have of their own, and how a country that escaped recession and mass unemployment despite the biggest global downturn since the Great Depression got so down on itself. It is a Labor insiders' account of politics and policy in Australia during the global financial crisis, which finds in a lethal combination of right-wing hyper-partisanship and misaligned incentives in our politics the root causes of Australia's lack of confidence and its deficit of national self-esteem. It provides a unique perspective on economics and national identity, concluding that if we don't choose a future less consumed by the poisonous politics of recent years we will squander our tremendous national advantages and momentum, and compromise our ability to tackle the socio-economic challenges of the coming decades as successfully as we have navigated those just past.