A special online event featuring Greg Sheridan in conversation with Pat Mesiti. Discover what almost 50 years observing world affairs can teach us about the forces reshaping Australia — and why understanding what’s happening today could completely change the way you approach your own future.
For generations, Australians were given a fairly simple plan: work hard, build a career or business, buy a home, pay down the mortgage, put something aside for retirement and trust that, over time, life would become more financially secure.
For many people, that plan worked.
But the world surrounding that plan has changed — and some of the numbers are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Annual inflation is now running at 4.0%, while the latest Wage Price Index shows wages growing at 3.2%.
If that gap continues, the result is simple: the cost of living keeps rising faster than our incomes. Our money buys less, household budgets get tighter, and we’re not being paid enough extra to keep pace with what everyday life actually costs.
At the same time, the Reserve Bank has lifted the cash rate from 3.60% at the end of 2025 to 4.60% today. For someone with a $700,000 mortgage, that one-percentage-point increase can mean around $5,500 a year in additional repayments, depending on the loan terms and how much of the increase is passed on by the lender.
So while our wages are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living, our mortgage repayments are climbing at the same time.
We’re earning more, but our money is buying less — and more of what we earn is being swallowed up simply keeping the roof over our heads.
If that pattern continues, Australians don’t simply feel worse off.
We become worse off.
And all of this is happening while technology is transforming industries, established ways of working are changing and many Australians who have worked hard for decades are beginning to ask whether the future they prepared for will actually look anything like they expected.
That creates a much bigger question than simply, “What happens next?”
Greg Sheridan isn’t simply responding to today’s headlines.
He has spent almost five decades in journalism and more than three decades as Foreign Editor of The Australian, analysing politics, economics, international affairs, national security and Australia’s place in the world.
He has spoken with and analysed some of the world’s most influential political leaders, watched Australian governments rise and fall, studied our relationships with the world’s major powers and observed decisions made decades ago continue to shape the country we live in today.
That depth of experience gives Greg a perspective few people possess.
Rather than looking at economic, political and cultural developments as isolated events, he looks at how they connect. He has seen periods of enormous optimism and periods of uncertainty. He has watched policies that seemed relatively insignificant at the time create much larger consequences years later.
When you’ve watched the same country, institutions and political systems for that long, you begin to recognise patterns.
You can see where things started. You can see which decisions mattered. You can see when something that appears temporary may actually be signalling something deeper.
And sometimes you can see where things may be heading long before the consequences become obvious to everyone else.
That is what makes this conversation with Greg Sheridan so important.
Greg’s answer is immediate.
Not a failed country. Not a hopeless country.
But, in Greg’s assessment, a nation moving in the wrong direction across too many important areas at the same time.
During this revealing conversation, Greg explains why he believes Australia’s challenges extend far beyond another difficult economic cycle. He talks about national debt, productivity, taxation, regulation, defence, education, culture, immigration, leadership and the changing values of Australian society.
He explains why Australians can be working harder and earning more on paper, yet still feel as though they’re falling behind.
And today, that observation is particularly difficult to dismiss.
Inflation is running at 4.0% while the latest annual wage-growth figure is 3.2%. The cash rate that sat at 3.60% at the end of last year is now 4.60%. Household costs are rising while the price of servicing debt has risen with them.
Greg also raises a more confronting possibility.
Some of what Australia is experiencing may not simply be temporary.
It may be structural.
He uses a striking idea to describe what can happen when decline builds gradually over time:
This is the value of hearing from someone who has spent a lifetime watching the decisions, people and events that shape nations.
Greg isn’t simply telling you what happened this week.
Most of us consume the world in fragments. We hear a story about interest rates, another about housing, another about government spending, China, immigration, energy, education, defence or technology. Each issue appears in isolation before the news cycle moves on to something else.
Greg has spent his career connecting those pieces.
In this conversation, he brings economics, politics, national security, culture, values and history together and asks what happens when several of those forces begin moving at the same time.
You may agree with everything Greg says. You may disagree with some of it. Some of his conclusions may challenge assumptions you’ve carried for years.
And that’s precisely why this conversation matters.
Because one of the most valuable things someone with Greg’s experience can give you isn’t simply another opinion.
And once you begin seeing the world differently, you may start asking very different questions about the decisions you’re making inside it.
What can I still rely on? What has genuinely changed? Which opportunities are disappearing and which new ones are being created? Am I preparing for the world as it actually exists today — or the world I always assumed would continue?
And perhaps most importantly:
One of the most fascinating turns in Pat and Greg’s conversation comes when they move beyond governments and economics and begin examining what people have done throughout history when the world around them changed.
Greg goes back almost 2,000 years to the early Christians. They began with little money, almost no political power and a culture that was often openly hostile to what they believed. Yet through conviction, community, service and a willingness to find another way forward, they ultimately had an extraordinary influence on the world around them.
Greg then connects those lessons to modern figures including Dallas Jenkins, Jordan Peterson, Bishop Robert Barron, Marilynne Robinson and Niall Ferguson.
But Greg sees something important in their stories.
They learned how to operate when the environment around them changed.
Dallas Jenkins couldn’t rely on the conventional Hollywood system to create The Chosen, so another path was found.
Bishop Robert Barron recognised that traditional approaches to communication weren’t reaching enough people, so he began developing something different.
Others have used ideas, writing, education, technology and new forms of media to reach people in ways that simply weren’t possible a generation ago.
The lesson isn’t that you need to become famous, build an audience of millions or become a professional speaker.
It is something far more relevant to everyday life.
Some people will spend the next decade waiting for the old world to return — waiting for governments to fix things, waiting for their industry to become easier, waiting for costs to fall, waiting for retirement to arrive or simply waiting for circumstances to make them feel secure again.
Others will begin asking better questions.
What is actually changing? What can I control? What opportunities exist today that didn’t exist ten or twenty years ago? What knowledge have I accumulated? What problems can I solve? What have I learned that somebody else could find valuable?
And perhaps the biggest question of all:
Greg may change the way you see what’s happening around you.
Most people have been taught to recognise financial assets. Your home is an asset. Superannuation is an asset. Savings and investments are assets.
But what about everything you’ve spent your life learning?
Your professional knowledge. Your understanding of an industry. The problems you know how to solve. The mistakes you now know how to avoid. The judgment you’ve developed. The skills that seem ordinary to you today only because you spent years acquiring them.
Then there are the experiences that never appear on a résumé: raising a family, rebuilding after a setback, succeeding in business, losing money and recovering, managing people, caring for others, developing a specialist interest, mastering a hobby or simply learning how to navigate circumstances somebody else may be facing for the very first time.
Most people never stop to put a value on any of it.
Pat Mesiti believes that may be one of the great mistakes people make as they get older.
Because the years behind you haven’t simply taken time away.
And in today’s world, knowledge, experience and perspective can potentially be used in ways that simply didn’t exist a generation ago.
Pat has spent more than 30 years working with people in business, wealth, personal development and education. Again and again, he has watched people reach a stage of life where they begin concentrating on what they believe they no longer have.
They tell themselves they’re too old to begin something new. They don’t understand technology. They don’t have the right qualifications. They’ve missed their opportunity. Their biggest earning years must surely be behind them.
Pat believes many of those people are looking at the equation backwards.
Because age can create the very things you didn’t possess when you were younger: experience, judgment, perspective, relationships, credibility and decades of accumulated knowledge.
So rather than asking:
“Am I too late?”
Pat wants you to consider a much more powerful question:
A generation ago, creating another source of income often meant significant capital, premises, employees, stock or financial risk.
That is no longer the only model.
Technology now allows ordinary people to provide services, solve problems, share expertise, create intellectual property, teach what they know and reach people almost anywhere.
That doesn’t mean everybody needs an online business. It doesn’t mean everybody should create a course, write a book or become an internet personality.
It simply means the range of possibilities is far broader than it once was.
Someone approaching retirement may discover a different way to use decades of professional experience. Someone who has overcome a major challenge may possess knowledge another person genuinely needs. Someone with a specialist skill, hobby or interest may discover value where they previously saw only something they enjoyed doing.
The starting point isn’t deciding what to sell.
Join Greg Sheridan and Pat Mesiti for an event that brings together a unique perspective on Australia’s future and a very personal examination of your own.
During this special online event, you’ll explore:
The goal isn’t to give you another reason to worry about the world.
It’s to give you a broader perspective on what’s happening — and encourage you to think differently about what you do next.
Foreign Editor of The Australian | Journalist | Author | Commentator
With almost 50 years in journalism and more than three decades as Foreign Editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan has spent a lifetime examining the political, economic and international developments shaping Australia and the world.
He has interviewed and analysed influential political leaders, covered major international events and written extensively about national security, culture and faith.
In recent years, Greg has also written three books exploring Christianity, including the lessons of the early church and the role of faith in contemporary society.
In this special interview, he brings that breadth of experience together to examine where Australia stands, how we arrived here and what patterns history may reveal about where we are heading.
Author | Entrepreneur | Educator | Mentor
For more than 30 years, Pat Mesiti has worked in personal development, business, prosperity and education, helping people examine their beliefs, develop their capabilities and identify new opportunities.
Through his books, speaking and educational programs, Pat has encouraged people to recognise the potential within their knowledge and experience rather than allow age, circumstances or past setbacks to define what comes next.
In The Turning Point, Pat takes the bigger issues raised in his conversation with Greg and brings them back to your own life, challenging you to reconsider the value of what you’ve already learned and what may still be possible.
This event is for people who have worked hard, accumulated years of experience and begun questioning whether the plan they’ve always followed will deliver the future they want.
Perhaps you’re concerned about Australia’s economic direction. Perhaps you’re approaching retirement and wondering what comes next. Perhaps you’ve built a career or business but suspect there must be more opportunity in everything you’ve learned.
Or perhaps you simply feel that, despite everything you’ve experienced and achieved, there is another chapter of your life that hasn’t yet been written.
You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need a business idea, a particular qualification or a desire to become famous.
You simply need to be willing to reconsider what’s possible.
You cannot control every decision made in Canberra, every movement in the economy or every technological change reshaping the world.
But understanding what’s happening gives you something enormously valuable:
The ability to make better decisions about what you do next.
Greg Sheridan brings almost 50 years of experience examining the forces that shape our world.
Pat Mesiti brings a challenge to look differently at the experience, knowledge and possibilities within your own life.
Together, their conversation may open your eyes to ideas you’ve never considered and encourage you to see your future from an entirely different perspective.
Free registration. Event includes a recorded interview with Greg Sheridan and a presentation by Pat Mesiti.
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