Feeling optimistic about Australia

 

Mint condition. PB. 304pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

At a time when politics seems increasingly negative and our society increasingly divided, Still Lucky shows that we are more fortunate than we think, and have more in common than we know.

Rebecca Huntley, one of Australia’s most experienced and knowledgeable social researchers, wants to break through all the noise and make you feel better about this country and the people around you. Our politicians are becoming more conservative, both in their policies and their ambitions for the country, but the Australian people – almost all of us – want to see real social change. We are more generous and more progressive, and more alike, than we think we are – and we are better than our day-today political discourse would suggest.

Huntley has spent years travelling the country, getting to know what’s in our hearts and minds. Here she tackles the biggest social questions facing Australia now: Why do we fear asylum seekers? Why are women still underpaid and overworked? Why do we over-parent? Why do we worry even though we are lucky?

Still Lucky is a broad-ranging, wise and compelling look at who we are now and where we are heading in the future, from someone who knows what Australians are really thinking.

About the author

Dr Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia's foremost researchers on social trends. She holds degrees in law and film studies and a PhD in gender studies. For nearly nine years, Rebecca was at the global research firm Ipsos. From 2006 until 2015, she was the Director of the Mind & Mood Report, Australia's longest-running social trends report. She is the author of numerous books, and was a feature writer for Australian Vogue, a columnist for BRW and the presenter of Drive on a Friday on Radio National. She is on the Artistic Advisory Board of the Bell Shakespeare Company and is an adjunct senior lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at The University of New South Wales. Rebecca currently provides research counsel to Essential, an integrated research and communications agency in Australia and New Zealand.