One reason Australians are concerned and fearful is because they are at the mercy of a government now recognised to be hopelessly incompetent and actively dangerous to the economy and its most significant contributors. As the Herald put it last week, this is a terminal case lashing out blindly at its perceived 'enemies', and capable of doing terrible and permanent damage in the process.

There is nothing wrong with citizens wanting better social, economic and environment outcomes in Australia as this will drive national, parliamentary and policy debates on how to conceptualise, innovate and deliver a preferred future for Australia.

Each citizen should become an active citizen and work towards building a stronger, smarter and more sustainable Australia. It is the role of local, state and federal government to create conditions that are conducive to continuous improvement of living standards through education, innovation and entrepreneurship rather than entitlements. The key to delivering sustainable and well paid jobs are agile small to medium sized enterprises which can earn profits across the globe.
This is where urgent reform is needed by all key stakeholders because without healthy and globally competitive firms our living standards will decline as quickly as they have in Europe and the USA.

What a despicable article!
“our citizens feel that we are entitled to be more prosperous than anyone else in the world and, indeed, have a right to expect even greater affluence than we enjoy now”
Our citizens feel no such thing, at least not deliberatively. It’s simply the case that desire is never slaked and the ‘novelty’ of novelty is never rubbed. Thus have we been trained to experience life—via anticipated need: commodified-consumption. Such impoverished life—consumption devoid of complement in need, achievement or accomplishment—is the engine of both glut and the dissatisfaction that those above so hypocritically lament. Are we not constantly lashed to spend? To consume? To find new ways to indulge and amuse ourselves? To drive the economy, to drive growth? To become richer? That is to become poorer, in body, capacity, real experience, and spirit.
“entitlement is a curse that must be removed before it becomes a cancer”
It’s not entitlement, it’s hopeless addiction, pushed by the system that now has the gall to criticise it, and is long-since cancerous!

"....yet Australians are overwhelmingly unhappy with their lot."

Freud, in "Civilisation an its Discontents", makes the observation that the purpose of life is simply determined by the programme of the pleasure principle., and that:

"It is quite incapable of being realised; all the institutions in the universe are opposed to it; one is inclined to say that the intention that man should be "happy" has no part in the plan of "creation".
What we call happiness, in the strictest sense of the word, arises from the fairly sudden satisfaction of pent up needs. By its very nature it can be no more than an episodic phenomenon. Any prolongation of a situation desired by the pleasure principle produces only a feeling of lukewarm comfort; we are so constituted that we gain intense pleasure only from the contrast and only very little from the condition itself..."

It seems Australians are suffering from "lukewarm comfort", so used are we to our fortunate predicament and our abundance.

A good article - however tends toward over generalization. I am on the age pension, and thank my lucky stars every day for the fact that I live here in a wealthy and free country. No one is born with 'rights' other than those either bestowed by society, or fought for by combined individual effort.

...I think Mick Jagger has answered this question in the lyrics of:

“Shattered”.

Pride and joy and greed and sex
That's what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, Im in tatters, yeah
Ive been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, Im a shattered