I recently had a short piece, co-authored by Tad Tietze, printed in response to George Megalogenis’ essay ‘Balancing Act: Australia Between Recession and Renewal’. The Megalogenis essay is available in Quarterly Essay Issue 61, and our response in Issue 62. Here is a short excerpt of the response:
We believe that no matter how brilliant and balanced a reform program is concocted by the best minds in the country, the coming years will be characterised by the persistence of a mostly reactive approach by governments to economic developments, and the inability of any section of the political class to develop an agenda that might consistently carry a majority of voters, let alone reshape society in line with this. The deeper structural factors we have outlined mean that pragmatic twists and turns, incoherent policy-making and political chaos are not about to exit the national stage.
The Quarterly Essay is available through most university and public libraries in hard and soft copy, and from Newsagents and book stores.