Leaderless and on the verge of a credit rating cut, one could be forgiven for thinking Australia is confronting a dire political and economic crisis.
We are not quite there yet. But what would happen if the unthinkable did happen? What if we lost that all important AAA rating?
The conventional wisdom is that a downgrade of Australia's credit rating will cheapen the value of the bonds which comprise our government debt, raising borrowing costs and compound budgetary pressures. 
In reality, this is not likely to happen. This is because all of Australia's government debt is denominated in Australian dollars, of which we have full control.
Since Australia can, in theory, print all the dollars it needs to service it's debt, an actual default is impossible - although printing money to pay debt will feel like a default for foreign investors because it debases the currency.
For nations that have full autonomy of their currency and monetary system, government bond rates are more a function of the term path of interest rates set by the central bank than a reflection of a risk premium associated with a potential default.
And if the economic growth is weakening, the chances are the Reserve Bank will be cutting the cash rate even lower, which will push down bond rates and borrowing costs.
The evidence in the US, Japan and the UK has been exactly that.
But that does not mean Australia is immune from the consequences. In fact, as some experienced bond investors have argued, the existence of twin deficits - a budgetary and current account - means Australia remains vulnerable to capital flight, which will manifest in the form of a weakening Australian dollar.
ANZ currency strategist Daniel Been has also argued the unusual age of AAA, which kept our currency elevated, has passed. When that rating, which reflects the sovereign ability to pay is stripped away, Australia looks extremely vulnerable on measures of economic stability - overall debt and external reliance.
A downgrade could be felt by Australian borrowers whose ability to pay may be doubted - Australia's banks. Their AA ratings, which they use to raise billions from offshore investors, rely heavily on the sovereign AAA rating.
If global investors charge the banks more for funding, this has the impact of pushing up overall funding costs. In response the banks will either slug borrowers with higher rates, tightening economic conditions or accepting lower profits, which will reduce share prices and dividend payments.
This was the core argument of David Murray's Financial System Inquiry - the government needs its AAA rating because they need to show international investors they are strong enough to stand behind the banks, and the banks need more capital to demonstrate their strength to reassure taxpayers and financiers.
Some, however, believe that the quest to maintain the AAA rating comes at too high a cost.
If salvaging the AAA rating results in overly austere policies, the impact on growth could be worse than any adverse impact of rating downgrade, some have argued.
If one accepts this line, the weaker economy could be worse for the banking sector risk and profitability.
Another adverse impact of fiscal tightening is that it could force of the economic rebalancing task on to the RBA, which will cut rates closer to zero, hurting savers and exacerbating inflated asset prices.
One important point to note about the banks is that even though they have hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign currency debt, they are required to hedge every cent into the local currency, which again gives the central bank a large degree of control not afforded to systems that owe debts in currencies other than their own.
So while Australia is a small open economy vulnerable to external factors, past crises have led us to establish important firewalls - government debt denominated in Australian dollars and fully hedged bank debt reduce the potential catastrophe of a global loss of faith.
At the moment there's no evidence of AAA rating anxiety within financial markets. Australia's 10-year bond rate is about as low as it's ever been at 1.91 per cent, at 75 cents to the US dollar, the Australian dollar is stronger than the central bank would like it to be. Australian bank credit spreads show apathy about a build up of risks.
But does that mean we should adopt a complacent attitude? What the rating cut signifies - that deficits are widening into the horizon - matters more than the loss of the rating itself. The AAA rating has been the badge of honour at a time of prosperity. Its loss will almost certainly signify an end of this era.