It's clear that the Australian economy of the first decade and a bit of this century was built on a bubble.
It was, of course, the bubble in Chinese demand for commodities, now well and truly over. China's economy may or may not be growing at 7 per cent (probably not), but its demand for raw materials, especially the ones needed to make steel, is down for the count. 
Bubbles are mind-bendingly seductive. When they're happening, you persuade yourself they'll never end, and when they have ended, you think they won't be gone long.
Sometimes they do come back. The tech bubble of the late 1990s did, stronger than ever. Technology companies now rule the world.
Mining and oil companies used to rule the world, but not any more. And the fate of Australia's economy has always been tied to them, rather to the new goliaths that are mining the internet.
The two bubbles - tech and mining, 10 years apart - were very similar, except for this: does anyone think mining profits will come back, and go to even higher levels in the future?
The big increase in mining profits up to 2012, from which the Australian government's budget benefited so handsomely, was due to an unsustainable boom in Chinese steel production.
Massive overcapacity was created. Chinese steel producers are now dumping steel wherever they can around the world, with a number of countries now launching anti-dumping actions.
Steel demand within China is largely a function of housing and infrastructure construction as well as demand for cars.
The challenge now is simple and difficult: Australia must now come to grips with what has happened.
The commodity bubble upon which this country's view of itself has been based is over, and probably won't be coming back.
China's economy is unlikely to collapse, but the demand for resources that characterised 2002 to 2012 has collapsed. If it comes back, it won't be for a long time, and it won't be the same.
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, key suppliers of tax revenue, are hunkering down and preparing for a long winter of low prices.They have quickly developed new corporate strategies to deal with the new conditions, based around cutting costs. Australia needs a new strategy as well.