Put some face tats on, grab a lamb chop and get ready to belt out your best rendition of Khe Sanh and You’re the Voice, Australia day is around the corner!
We may be a young nation, but we punch well above our weight on the world stage. We are 13th globally for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), yet we have the 53rd largest population in the world. There are almost 16 million more people in the US state of California!
Our population only accounts for 0.32% of the world’s population, yet 3% of the world’s millionaires are Aussie. Congratulations if you’re one of them!
Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth are all ranked in the top ten liveable cities in the world, and we are ranked second in the world for quality of life, according to the UN’s Human Development Index.
Yet another list we rank well on is income inequality – only 11% of Australians are worth less than USD $10,000. This compares to 22% in the UK and 35% in the USA. Average debt amounts to 21% of gross assets. The luck country, indeed.
It’s nice to see that we’re not just lucky, but generous too. The World Giving Index ranked Australians as the third most charitable people, after citizens of Myanmar and the USA. It’s estimated that 14.9 million Australian adults (80.8% of the population) gave $12.5 billion to charities and not-for-profits organisations in 2015-16. The average donation was $765.
Our altruism doesn’t stop at charitable giving. Wherever injustice reared its head, Australia was there to oppose it; from the World Wars, to regional conflicts and 70 years of peacekeeping, Australia has become synonymous with justice.
So this Australia Day, take some time to reflect on how lucky we are to call this Great Southern Land our home. We should be proud of where we are, but we can’t rest on our laurels. As Mahatma Ghandi once said, ‘The future depends on what you do today.’ So let’s make it count!
Happy Australia Day!
