Leadership lacking in an age of chaos

In the drama series Years and Years, currently running on SBS Television, an initially well-off couple lose their jobs as the United Kingdom plunges further into a post-Brexit recession.

They have to sell their house, depositing the more than £1 million they receive with a bank that fails overnight as the result of a new Global Financial Crisis.

Having lost their house and their money, they are forced to move in with an aged parent while the man, a former banker himself, is reduced to delivering pizzas on a bicycle.

Far-fetched? Australia currently has a household debt-to-income ratio of just under 200 per cent, a situation described as a “massive risk” by economist Gerard Minack.

“It is a house of cards…I just hope we do not head into recession in the next 10 years,” Mr Minack says.

As house prices soar, the million dollar mortgage is no longer unusual, yet even as debt continues to tick upwards, neither the Government, nor many business leaders, seem to be worrying.

Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Bank, Matt Comyn says he has no concerns at the ability of his customers to repay their mortgages.

“Obviously that’s contingent on interest rates remaining low; under any scenario interest rates are going to remain low for the foreseeable future,” Mr Comyn says.

I suppose it is inevitable a prominent banker would want to remain upbeat about the country’s financial future, but in a world where trouble spots are proliferating on a daily basis, it is dangerous to be too optimistic.

With Brexit uncertainties, a continuing trade war between China and the United States, and an unstable President in the White House, ‘foreseeable future’ is a very relative term.

An Australian Government obsessed with balancing the National Budget has dipped its toes in the financial stimulus water with a $3.8 billion infrastructure package that has ‘too little too late’ written all over it.

No one is going to wave flags and dance in the streets if and when Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announces the economy is in surplus.

Maybe ‘sound economic management’ had a pleasant ring to it in the past – but something more that steady as we go is needed in these different and troubled times.

With unemployment too high and under-employment a major problem, what is required is an inspirational program of projects that give Australians something to believe in and offer an example to the world.

Australia is better placed than most to withstand the kind of shocks that are multiplying almost daily, but it requires better leadership than has so far been demonstrated by those in charge of its destiny.