I personally think it's more of a give-and-take or feedback loop. Sometimes you need leaders who recognise strong ideas and run with them. I think a clear rece

I personally think it's more of a give-and-take or feedback loop. Sometimes you need leaders who recognise strong ideas and run with them. I think a clear recent example (regardless of personal opinion) is the whole gay marriage debacle. The majority of the population wanted it but no leader had the guts to be the one to do it. The closest we got was wasting money on a plebiscite, spending $80 million to basically ask "are you really sure you want this?". I don't mind being more directly involved in democracy, but we never have such plebiscites for other issues. They didn't have the courage to go ahead without covering their backsides. Anyway, back to the quote, if we're going to anthropomorphise Australia then the impression I get is that we are the rich kid who grew up with all the advantages bestowed upon us by Mother Britain but we never really learned to fend for ourselves as independent adults. We can't coast forever.