How Good is Australia?

How good? From Emma McKeon, Jess Fox and Raygun to our heroes from the Paralympics, pretty damn good eh?

A less parochial measure that looks at objective data tells a similar story though. Australia has the 16th highest GDP per capita and 7th highest life expectancy in the world according to the most recent statistics on Wikipedia (Figs 1 and 2). GDP figures are the average of those provided by the IMF, World Bank and UN. GDP is one way of measuring a nation's wealth, but a correlation coefficient of 0.71 with life expectancy (a catch-all measure of a nation's wellbeing) confirms that Australia is in a rude average state of health.

Dig a little deeper into the GDP numbers and it reveals that there is only one country with a larger population than ours above us, the USA. The combined population of the other14 countries is 37 million, or an average of 2.6 million people. The largest of those countries is Switzerland (9 million), whereas eight comprise less than 1 million, and six of those are less than 100,000 people. Australia really is one of the wealthiest mid to large sized countries, particularly considering that the USA is really two nations; an extraordinarily wealthy one nested alongside another bordering on Third World conditions, but I digress.

The six countries with longer life expectancies than ours include three significant populations; Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong and three minnows; French Polynesia, Liechtenstein, and the world's richest and longest living nation, Monaco.

Just as the USA woefully underperformed in its response to COVID, suffering a death rate befitting a nation with a GDP of around 20,000 USD, so too, its average life expectancy is marginally higher than China, but lower than Costa Rica, the Czech Republic and Panama.

Split probability plots (Figs 3 and 4) show countries from different regions arranged from lowest to highest GDP, and life expectancy, respectively.

As expected, Africa lags well behind the rest of the world for wealth and life expectancy. There is a clear break between eastern and western Europe, particularly for life expectancy. Oceania comprises a mix of very well off and much poorer nations, such that its profile cuts across trends that are largely sub-parallel for other regions.

So what? Well, I've got some questions, and I'd like some fair dinkum answers. How come, with such fantastic wealth, half of Australia really is doing it so tough? Why is our education system so starkly divided between those who have it all, and those who can't get any meaningful education if their parents can't afford private? Our peers, Norway, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Qatar and Sweden don't have this two tier system. Nor do they have it for health. Why? I mean seriously. Why TF are we like this? And what's the future. Are we more likely to reverse course to the more collective wellbeing of our peers, or is it all the way with the USA?

And back to a real bug bear of mine, mining. How is it that the most robust industry in the wealthiest nation on the planet is pleading that it is desperately fragile and that if it isn't handed more tax breaks and sweet deals, it will collapse? That's not how Norway have approached their oil wealth and they probably haven't got themselves into a position where they need to import gas like we have.

I think that it is completely un-Australian, to whinge like that, to cry poor when Australia is the number 1 destination for mining and exploration funds, but we can't provide adequate housing. Our country desperately needs a Mining Tax and much stiffer royalties to address the astounding wealth division in such a wealthy nation. I can only hope that those who keep on sucking up to Gina and Voldemort, peddling these MAGA-like lies at the expense of their "base", choke on their foie gras.

Bit harsh? Look at the data.