Lucky Country
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]After The Lucky Country, a 1964 book by Donald Horne.
Proper noun
[edit]
- (informal) A term to describe Australia, sometimes ironically.
- 1964, Donald Horne, “The Lucky Country (last chapter)”, in The Lucky Country, Penguin, 1st paragraph of chapter:
- Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.
- 1990 March 8, Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia, Australian federal election speeches[1]:
- My friends, no longer content to be the lucky country, Australia must become the clever country.