Australia remains wealthy but structurally fragile – highly dependent on raw exports and poorly positioned for a more complex, decarbonising global economy. Economic complexity is a warning signal we can no longer ignore.

Imagine Australia finishing last on the Olympic medals table. Not mid-pack. Not a disappointing ninth. Last.

There would be outrage. Inquiries. Sackings. Funding overhauls. We would demand to know how a rich, capable country with world-class facilities and talent could fail so completely.

Now consider a quieter, more consequential league table – one that measures not national pride for a fortnight, but economic capability for generations. On the global rankings of economic complexity and green complexity produced by Harvard University’s Growth Lab, Australia sits near the bottom of advanced economies. Not in income. Not in living standards. But in what actually matters for long-term prosperity: what we know how to make, how diversified our economy is, and how prepared we are for a decarbonising, technologically complex world.

On that table, Australia is not a contender. We are an also-ran.

The paradox is uncomfortable. Australia is rich but structurally weak. Comfortable but increasingly exposed. We occupy a strange and fragile position in the global economy: wealthy in per-capita terms, yet stuck in what world-systems analysts describe as the semiperiphery. We look like a core country when measured by income, but behave like a resource-dependent exporter when measured by productive capability.

If this were sport, we would call it unacceptable. In economics, we barely notice.

For decades, Australia’s prosperity has rested on what we extract and export. Iron ore. Coal. Gas. Agricultural commodities. These generate revenue, but they do not generate complexity. They do not build dense industrial ecosystems, transferable skills, or innovation spillovers. They do not prepare an economy for shocks – technological, geopolitical, or climatic.

Other countries understood this long ago. South Korea refused to accept its peripheral status. Taiwan built capability deliberately. Finland reinvented itself after crisis.

More recently, cities and regions across Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia have climbed from periphery to semiperiphery, and from semiperiphery toward the core, by doing the hard, unglamorous work Australia persistently avoids: sustained public investment, industrial policy, skills formation, applied research, and mission-driven innovation.

Australia, by contrast, has mastered the art of standing still while the world reorganises around us.

Our business class remains dominated by extraction, property, and rent-seeking rather than invention and value-adding. Our political class – Labor and Coalition alike – continues with business and government as usual: tax concessions instead of transformation; property inflation instead of productivity; “competitiveness” defined as cheap land, weak regulation, and shipping raw materials offshore.

We talk incessantly about innovation while underinvesting in it. We celebrate start-ups while doing little to support scale-up. We proclaim an energy transition while exporting fossil fuels at scale and failing to build downstream clean industries. We invoke sovereignty while remaining structurally dependent on global markets we do not shape.

This is not a failure of intelligence or resources. It is a failure of ambition and of political economy.

Economic complexity is not an abstract academic metric. It is one of the strongest predictors of long-term growth, resilience, and strategic autonomy. Economies that produce a wide range of complex goods adapt more easily to technological change, recover faster from shocks, and command greater influence in global systems. Economies that do not – even wealthy ones – become price-takers, rule-takers, and laggards in the transition to a low-carbon world.

That is the trajectory Australia is on if nothing changes.

The most disturbing feature is not our ranking. It is our indifference. If the Australian Institute of Sport collapsed, no government could survive on platitudes. Yet when evidence shows our economic foundations are thin, carbon-heavy, and low-complexity, the response is denial, distraction, or managerial tinkering.

We do not need more slogans about being “open for business.” We need to decide what kind of economy we intend to be. One that extracts and sells or one that invents, builds, and adds value. One that drifts comfortably in the semiperiphery or one that deliberately climbs into the high-performing core.

Olympic failure would force reform because it offends our self-image. Economic failure does not – yet. But it should. Because medals last a fortnight. Economic structure determines a generation.

If Australia would not tolerate finishing last on the world’s sporting stage, why are we content to do so on the economic one?