Australian economics has come a long way since John Maynard Keynes trashed the arguments of Billy Hughes, who led the country during World War I. Hughes pushed the victors to squeeze Germany hard, a stance that Keynes, part of the U.K. team at the Paris peace talks in 1919, vigorously opposed.

Andrew Hauser, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, felt moved to laud two golden ages in local history in a recent speech. They owed much to fine economic thought, translated into sound policy. He highlighted work done in the 1930s, when ministers wrestled with ways to alleviate the hardships of the Great Depression. He also hailed the ’80s and ’90s, decades that saw monumental reforms lay the ground for a record-breaking expansion. The Economist newspaper declared that boom, ended by the pandemic, "a feat that defied most other rich nations.”

But more importantly, Hauser, a former Bank of England executive, wondered whether Australia could come up with a third golden age. Policymakers and academics have been grappling with this challenge — the need to not just accelerate growth, but equip the nation for a more contested world, one in which trade and capital flows are constrained. Hauser called it "the killer question.”