Slowly, Australians are awakening from their deep 28 years slumber. For nearly three decades, they have slept secure in the delusion that the boom in commodities was a God-given gift that would keep on giving and provide the means to ride out any financial storm and most political follies.

They may have stirred at election time or when a prime minister changed, but even the ‘progressive’ chatter around them did little to disturb their reverie, thanks to constant reassurance that uninterrupted economic growth was a given.