The more recent sources of pessimism are of a very different nature, and very hard to analyse in simple economic terms. Let me start with a frequently-heard complaint in financial markets, and work from there. The complaint is summarised by the phrase “we (meaning Australia) are just not on the radar screen”.
By this is meant the tendency for investors around the world to concentrate their efforts in the big markets, such as the United States and Europe, and to ignore us because of our small size and lack of strategic importance. There is no doubt that this tendency can be important at times, but we should not assume that it is permanent.