Since those dark days, Australia has ridden a resource boom by selling iron ore and coal to China, which has earned us a lot of money. We now have a very high standard of living.

Still, it costs us a lot, too, as people flocked to the mining sector for high-paying jobs and crowded
out jobs in other sectors, such as technology or manufacturing. One example of this crowding out was the end of the car industry.

But resources are cyclical, and China is no longer growing at an outsized pace and never will again as its population ages.

AI and technology solutions are growing like gangbusters. Of the top eight companies globally, only Saudi Aramco is not a tech company. Aand we all know the Saudis are sitting on an enormous lake of oil.

We all live on our devices, and this results in you paying money to most of these companies, or having your data sold to someone else.

At the run-rate of AUD-USD decline (77c to 62c since January 2021), it will be down to 50c again in just three years. This won’t just make Disneyland more expensive; it also makes iPhones, laptops, laboratory equipment, cars, trucks and everything else we import more expensive. That also adds to inflation, so interest rates will stay higher longer.

I’m sure you’re saying: “Well, we’re small. We can’t compete.” Sweden and Denmark are smaller than us. They managed to produce Novo Nordisk (they make the Ozempic that took your weight off), Ericsson and Spotify.

The reality is that we have built the best, nicest petro-state in the world. But we are still a minerals-dominated, single-product country. According to Harvard, we have the same economic complexity (No 102 in the world out of No 145) as Yemen and Senegal (and well below Saudi Arabia and the UAE, actual petro-states that have done something about being a mono-economy).

Economic complexity is about building a greater variety of more complex industries. Countries that sell music software, 5G networks, and furniture stores, such as Sweden, rank higher than Australia. They are generally price setters, whereas you are a price taker if you sell a commodity.

A greater spread of industries means that if there’s a downturn in, say, DIY furniture and meatballs, maybe that’s because everyone’s streaming more.

Harvard researchers have shown that the degree of economic complexity is a predictor of economic growth. They forecast that because of a lack of economic complexity, Australia will be in the bottom 15 percent of all countries in growth over the next five years.

But be assured, in the coming election, both parties will talk about everyday Australians and their living conditions, but almost nothing about doing anything that will make a difference – things such as encouraging solid investment in R&D and product development by companies that replace imports and build exports.

They’ll talk about cash-back bonuses for “cost of living” and blame each other for the price of electricity, but they won’t actually fix the cost of living (or explain to you how it happened).

But both sides have been in power since 1996, when we were No 57 for economic complexity. We have consistently become worse as a nation – the second-worst fall in the world. (Russia’s only last because of sanctions).

And here in the Territory, we’re even less complex – roughly half our exports are LNG, and then there’s mining, tourism and education, but very little is being sold in complex services or goods.

So what am I doing? Trying to build awareness. Let’s make innovation (by business, not more university research) an issue we are concerned about. In this election, everyone will talk about “Australia’s future” but call it out for what it is – a short-term view of being elected, not a profound shift in this country’s economy that is needed.

If we make it an issue, the policies will come – there are plenty of good examples. Places such as South Korea and Singapore are always high on the Harvard list. Yet, two generations ago, they were fundamentally poor countries – Singapore was, in effect, a mud flat with a port, and Korea was war-ravaged.

Countries such as Norway and Finland had economies that were primarily based on forestry. These countries invested heavily in education and their industrial base, building complex exporters and the people to staff them.

We have an enormous head-start on where these countries were, and they have implemented proven policies to transition the economy. We must do the same.