The last rich nation standing

Putting on the documentary filmmaker hat, George Megalogenis explores the way Australia managed to steer itself through economic turmoil to become the last rich nation standing


Six former politicians, a number of treasurers, reserve bank heads and countless other political insiders paint a pretty remarkable picture of Australia’s economic and political history thanks to George Megalogenis’ new ABC documentary.

“Australia does feel like it’s at a dangerous point in development. The country’s been feeling anxious for a while, people haven’t been satisfied with the politics for a number of years and there’s a sense that our luck is going to run out.”

The veteran journalist, known for being in Canberra’s Press Gallery for more than a decade reporting for The Australian, takes a look at the power players and the external forces that contributed to the best and worst parts of Australia’s economic history.

“The political and economic story is about a closed society that went from the worst performer, the economic ‘juvenile delinquent’ in the ’70s and moved to become the last rich nation standing,” Megalogenis tells Neos Kosmos.

The three-part ABC documentary, Making Australia Great: Inside our Longest Boom, is Megalogenis’ first foray into documentary filmmaking, and for the print journo and author, the transition was a welcome change.

He quit his high-profile political role at The Australian to pursue other interests, mainly writing more books, but documentary filmmaking was always a pipe dream.

“It’s a privilege to do a career change at this stage of one’s life,” says the 51-year-old.

His ambition was to write the prequel to his bestselling book, The Australian Moment, but the ABC got in first.

“I was on the road from March to August last year,” he says.

“It was a full time job.”

Just the sheer time it would have taken to interview every prime minster since the ’70s is enough to show the mammoth task at hand.

The show tracks two versions of Australia; a highly prosperous, open one and a backwards, closed version that created many of the economic and problems many remember.

“When we’re closed down, greedy, protective, bad things happen to us,” Megalogenis says.

“The good Australia I tend to view as the open Australia, the openness in the markets [and] openness in society.”

He aims to show just how interconnected public opinion was in affecting economic and political events.

“You can’t have one without the other,” he admits.

“If we hadn’t opened our society, we couldn’t have conducted this grand experiment in open economics.

“We couldn’t have survived the GFC in a monoculture. We still would have been carrying a closed mindset.”

As a child of Greek migrants, Megalogenis believes that that openness came hand in hand with a more tolerant Australia, one that opened it borders to post-war migrants like his parents.

His story is intertwined briefly in the show to give the audience a human face to the external forces that influenced the politics and economics of the day.

“I think one of the reasons those things are sprinkled into the show is because you need to declare that baggage up front. I am a press gallery journalist and a child of migrants,” he says.

“You can’t pretend you’re this professor on the subject matter.”

Some of the best parts in the series come when Megalogenis takes a break from politics and focuses on a key cultural event that explains the time perfectly.

Case-in point: the colossally terrible Leyland P76 car.

The 1974 creation was dubbed the greatest failure in Australian automotive history and it came at a time when Australia was held captive by high tariffs on imported goods. The argument to open Australia’s markets was very much thanks to the failure of the Leyland.

“The P76, the unfortunate symbol of a broken economic model,” he says.

Megalogenis actually jumps into a restored Leland P76 to give it a test drive to prove the point.

The charm of this series is that Megalogenis makes very complicated and sometimes dry topics shine. An outsider immediately feels like an expert on the ins and outs of Australian politics and economic policy.

The archival footage cut between interviews helps a lot with that, but the first-hand comments from those in power make for some compelling insights.

“One of the things I wanted to do with the show was make sure the A-List you heard from, so the prime ministers, the treasurers and the central bank governor, and then all the cultural cameos, talk as human beings,” he says.

“I had to get them past the idea that they are political players and that they are witnesses to big events.”

Stuck within those parameters, people such as former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Fraser shine, while more recent politicians like Kevin Rudd struggle to sound genuine.

The final episode looks at the Global Financial Crisis and is one of the first times we see former treasurer Wayne Swan and former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard together to collectively give their version of events.

All reveal just how close we got to falling into a deep recession in 2008 and give their two cents on whether the stimulus policy was successful in the scheme of things.

Unexpected insights above and beyond the political A-list came from the Australian Reserve Bank governor from 1996 to 2006, Ian Macfarlane, and secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Ken Henry.

“They were jargon free,” Megalogenis admits.

While the show delves into the peaks and troughs of the economic landscape from the 1970s till now, interestingly, Megalogenis also looks at what the country can expect in the future, and how it can keep the boom going.

Sadly, he expects small pain for bigger gain.

“We’re going to have a recession sooner rather than later,” he admits.

“Right now, Australia does feel like it’s at a dangerous point in development. It feels like we’re trying to talk ourselves out of our opportunity.

“I feel like the country’s been feeling anxious for a while, people haven’t been satisfied with the politics for a number of years and there’s a sense that our luck is going to run out.”

It’s a tough pill to swallow but one based in fact. Australia hasn’t had much luck avoiding a recession past a 30-year period.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Looking even further into the future, Megalogenis is an optimist.

“In the next 20 or 30 years, if we can control for things you really can’t predict, essentially war, famine or some big environmental shock, we will end up being the world’s model Eurasian nation,” he says.

He points to an open society, one that makes sensible but necessary reforms, and one that opens itself up to diversity.

Migrants are key in promoting that open market he says. With their connection to the motherland, it increases trade relations. Their children become highly educated and entrepreneurial assets to the country, and with an eye on global matters, promote a stronger, more aware community.

While the series still hasn’t aired, Megalogenis is already finalising his next project. He’s working on a prequel to the book that inspired the series, The Australian Moment, which will be launched in July.

Making Australia Great: Inside our Longest Boom will premiere on ABC 1 on March 17 at 8.30 pm. The series will continue at the same time on March 24 and March 31.