A curious thing is afoot in Australia: pessimism that's wildly at odds with the facts.

Looked at from almost any angle, the nation of 22 million is on a tear. Unemployment is 4.9 per cent, wages are rising about 4 per cent a year, consumer prices are advancing about 3 per cent and interest rates have been steady all year. Policy makers in Europe, Japan and the US would kill for those numbers.

Yet consumer confidence is dismal, retail sales are down and a big majority of voters want to kick out the government. Economists, businesspeople and average Sydneysiders seem no happier with their lot than New Yorkers, Parisians or Tokyoites.

The gloomy global scene gets some of the blame. Noxious politics may provide a better explanation — one that's found beyond Australia in Japan, the US and elsewhere.

The politics of pessimism is a tried-and-true formula. Blame those in power for every conceivable ill, employing plenty of hyperbole and lots of volume. It's a sure way to dominate the news cycle.

As 2011 unfolds, though, something feels different, more apocalyptic. Politicians, radio shock jocks, TV pundits and editorialists are tripping over themselves to call Julia Gillard the worst prime minister Australia has ever seen, today's economic climate the most dismal and tomorrow's outlook the most disheartening in history.

Good problems

Sure, Australia has its share of challenges. It must invest more in infrastructure and education, and figure out what to do with the spoils from the epic resources boom that has pitted Western Australia against the rest of the nation, which faces slower growth.

These are good problems to have at a time when Europe is on course for default. Since the 2008 financial crisis, US and European policy makers have done little to fix the underlying problems that caused the meltdown.

Rather than adopting the monumental reforms needed to restore economic growth, those in power act as if the most arduous changes have already been made. Opposition leaders, meanwhile, talk down their economies as never before and stifle further attempts to keep the banking industry from running off the rails again.

The global financial system is in desperate need of leadership, big thinking and shared sacrifice. Leaders must forget the next election, never mind the next news cycle, and tell their voters what is at stake and what needs to be done to prepare for a future in which China and other upstarts will change everything.

Turning point

Yet we seem to have reached a turning point in this globalised, real-time, 24/7-news-cycle and jittery world of ours. Although negativity always sells, these days it also seems to take on a life of its own.

In the US, for example, the Tea Party has many Americans convinced that President Obama is a socialist bent on ruining the nation, when in fact it's the congressional stalemate on raising the debt ceiling that may inflict true and lasting harm.

In Japan, leaders of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party that put corporate interests and an out-of-control nuclear industry in the driver's seat claim that any change will precipitate Armageddon.

Australia's obstacles are far less dire, though you wouldn't know it. The country needs an honest and transparent debate about harnessing the mining boom, but it's getting a petty brawl between Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott. Anything Gillard proposes, Abbott derides as economic suicide.

The toxic tenor of politics has a surprising number of Australians thinking the mining boom is somehow bad. China's demand for coal and iron ore is soaring, and that's a plus. The question is how this bounty is managed.

The last thing Australia needs is a case of "Dutch disease," whereby the benefits of exporting natural resources lead to the neglect and atrophy of other sectors.

Australia's business community figures it can dump Gillard. Her sin is making an effort to lead. She is pushing something that's inevitable globally as temperatures and sea levels rise: a tax on carbon emissions.

The knives are out and the punditocracy is telling Australians they will be homeless if Gillard gets her way. It would be silly if it weren't so pernicious.