We all know Australia is ‘The Lucky Country’. At least that’s what we like to think. But the book that coined the term – Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country (1964) was misinterpreted. He meant Australia was lucky to be doing so well despite how mediocre our leaders are.

First published in 1964, it has had five editions. I finally got around to reading the last edition, published the year Donald Horne died; 2005. He was born in 1921. Like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the title conveyed a different message it intended. Do Horne and Dawkins have something in common, I wonder?

Upon reading The Lucky Country – after hearing so much about it – I’m afraid my suspicions are confirmed. Although incredibly eloquent and engaging, Horne was a little too smart for his own good.

There is an obvious reason the man was Chancellor of the University of Canberra, Chair of the Australia Council and author of 28 books; he’s a towering intellect. He has helped explain Australians to themselves with a keen intuition. It relies on experience and anecdotes, rather than data.

However, by giving his book such an obtuse title, he set himself up to fail. Apparently, he spent many frustrating years trying to correct the misinterpretation. And yet it still persists. Because we Aussies are essentially positive about ourselves.

I didn’t read the book cover to cover – I read the Contents and jumped to Chapter 10 The Lucky Country. The review on the back cover states:

In 1964 The Lucky Country caused a sensation, Donald Horne’s words shaking Australia out of a self-satisfied reverie. Horne provocatively critiqued the country as mired in mediocrity and manacled to its past… Horne warns us of relying on luck. He diagnoses the ills of Australian society and, with startling prescience, offers a way forward.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke echoed this ‘way forward’, calling on Australia to become the “Clever Country” (p. 235).

Donald Horne’s book was written before the Whitlam government came to power. I remember a foreign journalist who interviewed him saying – some time before the Dismissal – that it was unusual to see the most intelligent man in the country running it.

The book is a product of its time and it is interesting to journey into the past. It is clear the view is of mid-20th Century Australia: “Among some of the younger generations there is an obsession with ‘maturity’.” (Chapter 10, p.240) I recall a senior friend of mine – international ballet dancer Tony Geeves – echoing this. He said, in his youth everyone was trying ‘look mature’. Tony is an early Baby Boomer and I’m at the very tail end of it. Things can change quickly. In my youth, my parents would bemoan the culture of the youth – to my face – because by then everyone had become obsessed with youthfulness.

Unlike Bob Hawke – ever a man of the people – Donald Horne seems to condescend – not just to Australia’s managerial class down, but to Aussies in general. Perhaps this is understandable given that he was writing at the end of 25 years of uninterrupted Liberal Party (conservative coalition) rule. He thinks better of the average punter than its [sic] overlord, but doesn’t seem to be very optimistic about our prospects.

So how have we fared? Many of Horne’s hopes for Australia have come to fruition – we are much more cosmopolitan and technically advanced. However, his critique of the ruling class seems to have been borne out. They have failed to nurture a sophisticated Australian economy. Both Labor and the Coalition – have ushered in an obsession with the bottom line that has turned us into a client nation. We rank very low (18th) on national self-sufficiency. We have pity few high-end everyday products we can point to as Australian achievements. Our leaders have completely disregarded the value of social capital.

We are now perhaps in a consumer-dosed materialistic stupor. One compounded by complexity, going in over our heads with diversity and growth. Thanks to a silent pact among the political class, we are reenacting the colonial boom whilst damning its indigenous descendants. We are divided and unable to grapple with the Polycrisis. Menzies wanted Aussies to become ‘little capitalists’. What has become of his aspirational Liberal Party and its free enterprise model? It has morphed into a monster. The ‘pact’ has been telling the whole world to come here, get rich, celebrate their culture and ignore the local consequences. As long as Australia gets big, equality and the environment be damned. Australia’s egalitarian culture has been corroded in the name of sharing with all and sundry. What compels us to such self-neglect?

In Chapter 10, Horne puzzles over Australia’s prospects. He hints at the promise of a younger generation of leaders looking to Asia for inspiration. One that accepts our distance to Europe. It seems that has gone above and beyond what’s healthy. We have transformed our cities into high-rises that mimic the Asian lifestyle. Did we ever want that?

Horne’s take on Australia’s historical treatment of Aborigines is characteristic of the run up to the 1967 referendum. 90% of Australians approved of reforms to give them greater recognition and equality before the law. But his typically progressive summary, acknowledging the ‘pushing them aside’, slaughter and assimilation to extinction, misses a point. The British intended to include them in civilization-building, or so they said. It proved impossible because of the same impulse that underscores our economy today; selfish opportunism.

There is something very Christ-like about Australia’s social progressiveness. It is so general in nature that it is not peculiar to Australia. As redemption for past ‘sins’, Britishness is to be sacrificed on a crucifix of immigration. A lot of history has come out through truth-telling. Reconciliation was always going to be a Herculean (but doable) task, but we have complicated it with multiculturalism. Had we not, it might have progressed further by now. Meanwhile, there is satisfaction in self-flagellation.

Listed under Chapter 4 in the Contents Between Britain and America is a subheading A republic?

Horne positions Australia – quite rightly – alongside Asia. “It is possible that Australia will have to begin making its own decisions in a kind of way that will be painful to existing attitudes.” (p. 104) By 1964, Australia was well and truly independent in all its decision-making. John Curtin had paved the way during the Second World War by pivoting to the United States for help. But Horne seems very concerned that what Asians think of our ceremonial links to the British Crown is not flattering. “Australians are anonymous, featureless, nothing-men.” (p. 106) This self-loathing is a misunderstanding of our mild ethnicity, as Frank Salter calls it. We have dispensed with traditional costumes. Our rich culture was never in clever recipes. Anglo-Celtic Australian culture is alive and well and it’s sad that Horne undervalued it.

Horne possibly makes a good point when asking, “Is Australia alone in the world in being unable to rig up its own head of state?” (p. 106) It seems that way. But again I believe he underestimates the average Aussie. We are just taking our time and feeling our way. Our leaders are – as Horne suggests – risk averse, which slows the process down. (If they weren’t, they’d have trialled [sic] a Universal Basic Income during COVID, instead of the messy handouts we got.) That seems not to have changed, despite – or because – of the Whitlam years. So don’t expect initiative from the top.

We actively reaffirmed our current arrangement in the 1999 Republic Referendum. Like most republicans, Horne toys with various versions of a Presidential appointment or election, as though its the only logical option. This fails to address the basic merit of constitutional monarchy – a family Head of State. Republicans consistently forget the obvious – that people identify with that which we all share; childhood. They also hugely over-estimate the desire to decide who the ceremonial Head of State will be. The 1999 Referendum failed not because people wanted a direct election model, as ARM believes, but because we want a Head of State we can relate to. (I have outlined the arguments more fully HERE.)

I am glad I finally got around to reading some of Donald Horne’s seminal Australian work.