We have reached that point in the political cycle where sensible people find themselves thinking about what sort of circuit-breaker is required for our elected representatives to do something meaningful about the Australian malaise.

The obvious recent opportunity to remake what is in danger of becoming a sclerotic state was the pandemic recession. The most profound social and economic shock in a century was met with the biggest Keynesian intervention in Australian history, which saved hundreds of thousands of jobs with income support. Balanced budget orthodoxy was disregarded by the Morrison government because it would not have worked and it was assumed the government of the day would later get on with the job of reversing Australia’s pre-crisis productivity slowdown and securing the nation’s post-crisis prosperity.