THE more I travel, the more I see that most developed nations face the same problems and the sad reality is that their governments seem powerless to solve them.
I have spent the past week in London, where Labour has elected as leader a populist politician, Jeremy Corbyn, who does not even have the support of ex-party leaders such as Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. But who could resist ideas such as printing money to provide houses for the less well off?
Housing for poor people has been a hard road for the Brits. Two years ago the Government introduced a flagship home ownership scheme, Help to Buy, which offered low-income earners the chance to buy a property with a deposit as little as 5 per cent, by offering government guarantees. It was popular, with more than 120,000 households taking advantage of it since inception. However, the net effect has been to drive up the average house price by Â£8250. Yes, it has helped the relative few who have bought houses since the scheme started, but it has made it harder for those who still do not have a foot on the ladder. 
There is also much discussion about tax credits: another scheme based on the best of intentions.
To encourage people into the workforce, low-income workers could qualify for a tax credit, which would boost their take-home pay.
It was seen as a type of welfare, and came under attack in the   July Budget, which tried to cut welfare and taxes.
The   July Budget reduced the company tax rate to 19 per cent and gave tax cuts to those on higher incomes. While this was welcome news for those better off, the poor did not fare so well.
The cap on benefits was cut from Â£26,000 to Â£23,000 in London and Â£20,000 in the rest of the UK. Working-age benefits, including tax credits, were frozen for four years.
The purpose of the changes was to push people off welfare into full-time work. The problem is that, under the new proposals, an employee will lose Â£47 of tax credits for every extra Â£100 they earn. That is an effective marginal tax rate of 47 per cent.
I watched a debate on tax credits in the House of Commons and was fascinated by the arguments put by both sides. One Conservative said: "When I worked in small business, casual workers refused to work extra hours because they would lose their tax credits." Labour responded: "That may be true, but what do you say to a low-income earner who is going to lose Â£31 a week because of your proposed changes?" Targeting welfare while simultaneously encouraging people into full-time work has been a huge challenge for governments for years. To the best of my knowledge no government has achieved it.
The perfect storm of rising life -expectancies and budget deficits is hurting all over the world and the UK is no exception.
It is endeavouring to reduce the flow of immigrants by tightening visa requirements while, at the same time, it has tried to make the poor better off by increasing the minimum wage. The result? Aged care homes are in danger of going bankrupt under the combined pressures of a shortage of nurses (caused by the visa restrictions) and a higher wages bill (caused by the higher minimum wage).
According to Age UK, the country's largest charity for older people, the new changes exacerbated a -situation that was already difficult, because government spending on residential care for the elderly had been slashed by a fifth in the past four years.
Australia faces the same problems and we have no successful models to follow.What will it take for an Australian government to find a sane solution to problems that are, for the most part, one part economic, one part social and one part mystery?