Introduction

Abstract

Some time during late 2018, Queensland will become home to exactly five million people. That milestone alone is enough for any state to take stock, but when faced with both fiscal opportunity and economic challenges — and a recent state election that exposed a deeply divided electorate — it is clear that Queensland in 2018 finds itself at crossroads. Do we, in our economic and social policy, embrace risk and look forward to an optimistic future, or does a fearful Queensland turn inwards to seek a golden past that may never truly have existed? Do we continue to build a globalised and multicultural Queensland, or do we return to parochialism, protectionism and populism?