The first time I met Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's new leader, all he could talk about was Japan. It was June 2002 and the Goldman Sachs banker-turned-politician couldn't comprehend how a smart, democratic government could simply stand by as an enervating malaise strangled the economy.

When I asked him whether something similar could happen in Australia, Turnbull stared out his Sydney office window. "There are real risks for Australia in globalization and we could be a loser in the future just as we have been a winner to date," he said.

Those risks are more than obvious now. Unlike Japan, Australia isn't suffering from deflation and demographic blight. But its leaders, too, are guilty of not moving fast enough to adjust to a changing economic reality. Over the last two years, neither then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott nor Treasurer Joe Hockey implemented the structural reforms needed to increase incomes and boost competitiveness.