The Unlucky Country? A must-watch 7NEWS investigation – Five stories. Five nights. Five flashpoints.
“I haven’t had a hot shower since January 2023.”
“These sort of pains don’t go away on their own… people are dying waiting for surgeries…”
“We’ve been in situations where we’ve had $30 a fortnight to buy food, and you do it… we can do it on $5 or $10 a day if we have to.”
These are the very urgent and real housing, health and financial problems of hardworking Australians that can be echoed by millions in this country who are facing similar or worse.
While our politicians are telling us the economy is in good shape, 7NEWS Chief Reporter Chris Reason has spent weeks traversing the country, meeting and experiencing the daily struggles of everyday Australians who prove that’s far from the reality in our communities.
Every night this week in 7NEWS live at 6.00pm, this must-watch special investigation will take a hard-hitting look at the critical issues confronting Australia’s future, exploring the challenges and opportunities posed by the nation’s population growth which is projected to soar to 39 million by 2071.
From population and immigration to cost-of-living, housing, employment and health, Reason will share the personal stories of residents right across Australia all affected in different ways by the evolving landscape of the nation, as well as provide critical context from an expert demographer who is calling for urgent government intervention.
Reason said:
“This assignment has been as fascinating as it was troubling. Australia is struggling. We’ve spoken to a wide range of people in postcodes across the country, and they are reporting hardship and suffering.
“Some economists claim the cost-of-living crisis is over – we are hearing it is far from it. In the last two years, we have seen a surge in immigration the size of which has never been seen in Australia’s history. A new immigrant arrives every 44 seconds. The country and economy need them, but everyday Australians we have spoken to have no doubt it is putting pressure on the country, our housing crisis, cost of living, and health system.
“Each almost feeds the other to create an apparently never-ending cycle of consumer misery for so many: our immigration numbers rise, the population grows, we can’t build houses fast enough, the prices keep going up, squeezing the cost of living, cutting our time for sport, we eat fast food and our health slides backward.
“Perhaps one number is more telling than any other: six per cent. That’s the gap, since COVID, between inflation (up 19%) and wage growth (up 13%). Wages just haven’t kept up with inflation. If you feel worse off since COVID, feel like you’re going backwards, it’s because most people are – by six per cent, and that’s an average. Some have fallen much, much further because their wages haven’t moved.
“During the US election campaign, Donald Trump would open his rallies with the question: ‘Do you feel better off than four years ago?’ When we’ve asked the question here, many are telling us: ‘No’.”
Australian National University demographer Dr Liz Allen, who features in the investigative series, is definitive in her assessment of Australia’s cost-of-living crisis: “This is not just a crisis, this is a catastrophe.
“Families with children are struggling. That will have flow-on impacts to the opportunities that those young people have over the course of their lives, and we are watching it happen in real time without any care for the future.”
The Unlucky Country? A must-watch 7NEWS five-part investigation – Starts tonight, 7NEWS live at 6.00pm on Channel 7 and 7plus
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The Unlucky Country? A must-watch 7NEWS investigation
