24 March

This very famous book was one of the first to commit the gravest of Australian sins. Criticising its own country. Australia has a glass jaw when it comes to self-criticism. Horne on Australia: "It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise." Horne thought Australia the laziest of all developed countries, producing almost no new technologies or innovations, averse to ideas, relying upon natural resources and immigration to remain wealthy. Little about that has changed.