Alan Austin, via Independent Australia, has been publishing articles about the state of the economy in an effort to counter the current backyard barbecue headcanon that everything has gone to pot and Albanese’s government are the devil.

Austin’s latest points out that, No Pauline, 63 per cent of Australians do not use candles, and he gave solid stats on previous governments in this one: Specialists refuse to correctly diagnose best economy ever

However, national figures are never going to communicate a true picture of who’s doing it tough, who’s doing fine, who’s doing well because they’re doing good, and who’s living the high life by extracting from others and trashing the planet. Means, and even medians abound, but what are the modes of Australian life? Anybody have good data sources they’d like to share?

For example, nationally, luxury spending is apparently up, on private schools, overseas trips etc, but at what income do people do that spending? In what parts of the country? National employment figures are ‘good’ but what about graduates?

In his bio, it says Austin currently lives in the south of France :) I guess he has a traveller’s perspective on how good Australia is.