In many respects - and for most people - Australia continues to be one of the best places in the world in which to live.
Typically, we can walk down our streets in safety, if we fall ill we have access to some of the most outstanding health care in the world and our children will receive a fine education as they grow up surrounded by an environment of beauty and abundance.
Yet, if you barely scratch the surface, you will find many Australians to be discontented and fearful for their future - and that of their offspring.
Some are concerned about major issues such as climate change, energy security and so on.
These are the issues that capture headlines and focus the minds of the political class - and those who support and report on their activities.
However, I think that, for all of their undoubted importance, such matters tend to obscure the fact that most people are troubled by what I call the 'bread and butter' questions of daily life.
These questions include: How safe is my job? Who cares about me and those I care about? How will the nation feed itself? Are we safe from attack? Who can step in during cases of natural disaster or man-made calamity? Why are our leaders not held to account when we are?
If ethical infrastructure is damaged or broken (as much of it is in Australia) then the gains to be made from other investments are doomed to be sub-optimal.
It is not beyond us to develop spectacularly good answers to such questions.
However, I wonder if we still have the capacity to give such answers practical effect?
A nation's capacity to make the most of opportunity and avoid calamity is directly tied to the health of its institutions and the trust reposed in its leadership.
Almost every answer to the problems we face will require reform of one kind or another - and I fear that our willingness to embrace necessary reforms is virtually non-existent ... not because there is a lack of good ideas, but because we simply do not trust anything coming out of the mouths of those who will need to make the case for change.
Over the past couple of years, we have been working at The Ethics Centre on what we call The Integrity Project.
The aim is to revitalise the 'ethical infrastructure' on which a society depends for its health, safety and prosperity.
In that sense, we argue that ethical infrastructure is every bit as important as physical and technical infrastructure.
Indeed, if ethical infrastructure is damaged or broken (as much of it is in Australia) then the gains to be made from other investments are doomed to be sub-optimal.
By 'ethical infrastructure' we mean institutional arrangements like the professions, the media, political parties, and other (often informal) means - such as the now-abandoned conventions surrounding ministerial responsibility - that regulate the use of private and public power for the common good.
We've all seen what happens when this infrastructure is broken.
The 'unthinkable' becomes routine - as revealed in The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
The rich use their wealth to purchase power and influence.
Governments use public money to pursue their private political interests - without the slightest sense of shame.
The media confuses opinion with fact and prefers sensationalism over more simple truths ... the list could be a long one.
All of this degrades trust and ultimately threatens the legitimacy of the institutions that are supposed to provide society with the confidence to embrace change - for the better. Instead, we remain ... stuck.
After all, why embrace innovation and change when the answer to the question: 'Who cares about me and those I care about?' is ... nobody.
In these circumstances, who will believe that reform can be enacted in a manner that is both just and orderly?
Instead people simply assume that they will be thrown under the proverbial bus.
None of this should be taken as a prescription for pessimism.
On the contrary, we have the capacity to fix what is broken - to insist on higher standards, to demand that institutions perform their proper function, to rise up against those who have the barefaced cheek to treat us as idiots while they weaken the sinews of representative democracy. Our world is largely a product of the choices we make.
If we make better choices, we will make a better world.
