Collective trauma has brought Australians together but rising inequality is leaving many behind | Julianne Schultz

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If only nation-building could happen by putting a sign on a building and creating a capital A authority.

Rob Sitch's stunning embodiment in Utopia of a public servant trapped in a world of risk matrixes, carefully managed announceables, spreadsheets and asphyxiating political caution crystallised a collective sense of faintheartedness.

If nation-building is just about infrastructure that takes too long, costs too much and seems to disproportionately benefit one interest group, who cares. If it is about individual dreams, collective imagination and a shared sense of belonging, everyone cares.

But that is even harder to corral in the winner-takes-all world of politics, information and culture shaped by the socially disengaged global attention economy. Better to dream small, keep your focus close: on your family, your work, your community. For most people, much of the time, this works. It privatises belonging but encourages public cynicism.

Last week the faultlines of this highly personalised sense of belonging and national identity opened wide and touched almost everyone.

It started with a "melee" on a bus that left one boy dead, several injured and five facing criminal charges and was followed quickly and catastrophically by the Bondi Junction rampage by a mentally ill man who had slipped through the cracks in the health care system; the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd Church stabbing, allegedly by a teenage boy, and the subsequent riot by men who should have known better. The week ended with news of the apparent suicide of a 10-year-old First Nations boy in state care.

These events point to faultlines as old as the nation that once boasted it was a "man's land" - inequality, misogyny, racism, angry intolerance.

The trauma that accompanied the tragic consequences of lives lost and damaged was raw and immediate. They drew people together, to grieve and rage.

Last year the Australian Cohesion Index revealed that Australia, a nation that has long prided itself on being a country that works, that is fair and inclusive, was poised worryingly close to a precipice. Belonging, national pride and trust had tumbled to all-time lows. Young people, the poor and new residents were increasingly feeling left out. Inequality was rising, with social and political consequences.

The trend lines had been on a downward projection for years, but this report sounded a loud alarm. It suggested that the "common moral ground" felt "increasingly shaky" and that there was a need for a minister for social cohesion.

The vicious racism of the voice debate last year, followed by the impassioned responses to the 7 October attacks and the war in Gaza, fostered a new, uncomfortable, normal of noisy volatility.

In this environment of competing issues and political point scoring the suggestion of a social cohesion minister was just another good idea that evaporated. Maybe the events of last week will revive it.

Social cohesion is not something that can be achieved by waving a magic wand, although an occasional inspiring prime ministerial speech can help. It is multi-faceted and depends in large measure on fostering a more complex economy that does not allow the gap between the rich and the rest to balloon, that provides real opportunities, not just part-time gigs on the minimum wage.

The economic settings of market-loving neoliberalism may, for a short time, have produced a sea that raised many boats before it became a tsunami that created a new breed of mega rich and left the rest gasping.

In Europe, the UK and North America the global financial crisis and pandemic revealed the weakness of the financial, security and health systems. Austerity and the impact of climate change made them personal. Social cohesion took a battering, politics was unmoored.

A new generation of (predominantly female) economists argued for different settings a few years ago. With the insight that comes from "viscerally" understanding "the underdogs" they asserted there was a need to recognise and use the power of the state to help facilitate a transformation that would produce more robust opportunities and prepare for a climate-challenged world.

After missing the Galbraith moment during the great depression, Australia has become adept at adopting international economic paradigm shifts with an Aussie accent. It happened with reconstruction after the second world war, it happened in the first phase of deregulation in the 1980s. But for years, as the world has inched towards a new paradigm, Australian policy has been marking time, clinging to a childlike faith in the market. In this vacuum the economy has become less complex, unhealthily dependent on mining and services. Inequality has grown and outsourced public services have been found wanting.

The prime minister's workmanlike speech announcing the next plank in his government's architecture to reshape the economy has been greeted with such astonishment that it suggests key sections of Australian society are not ready for a paradigm shift.

Governments pick winners every day. They set the rules that shape almost every interaction. It is hard work, and not everyone likes the outcomes. But the essential platform, social cohesion, can only flourish in a society that has a robust, inclusive and equitable economy, where safety and respect are assured, home ownership is not a "dynastic privilege" and fear is minimised. Not utopia, but a lot better than average.