When Paul Keating floated the Australian dollar it was against a background of strong public and political opposition.

It was the same when tariffs were reduced, when the financial system was opened up and when labour markets were deregulated after the waterfront stoush.

They were big and unpopular decisions but they formed the foundation of the last 20 consecutive years of positive economic growth. A 20 year economic golden period.

We were fortunate to have Federal Treasurers and Governments willing to make the hard unpopular decisions for the future of this country.

We also had worldclass financial bureaucrats in the background pushing for those tough reforms. Bureaucrats who were looking beyond the current 3-year political cycle.

Ken Henry, as boss of the Federal Treasury, has been that world class bureaucrat for the last 10 years.

He quietly retired last week with a final speech at the University of Tasmania. That’s the type of bloke he is. Quiet, unassuming but with an enormous intellect.

His final speech should have attracted more attention because it challenges politicians, and all of us, to make the hard decisions and not waste the benefits of this one-in-a-lifetime commodities boom.

In other words, Ken Henry (who in our minds is the greatest Treasury boss of our generation) reckons as a country we’re getting fat, lazy and complacent.

“There is not the same sense of urgency among our politicians as there was in the 1980s,” he said in his speech. “There is a sense of complacency in the broader community that hasn’t put the political system under as much stress as there was in the 1980s.”

Like you, we hear all these experts say the commodities boom will last forever, that things are “different” this time and China’s prosperity will continue without a hiccup.

We heard similar people say the same thing during the gold boom of the early 80s, the share boom of the late 80s and the internet boom of the late 90s.

They all said it was “different” this time round. It never is. Markets and economies all move in cycles. History says the bigger the boom the bigger the bust which follows. It’s just a matter of when. It’s all in the timing.

So what are we showing for 20 consecutive years of positive economic growth and the greatest commodities boom in 100 years?

Think about it? How are the state of our hospitals? What about infrastructure like public transport, road, rail or ports?

Where is all the money going?

“If we are going to find a way of achieving the dual goals of investing in high quality public infrastructure and continue to present ourselves as a relatively riskless place to invest, then we are going to have to develop policies with respect to infrastructure that are a lot more sophisticated than the policies we have today,” Ken Henry said at the University of Tasmania.

You betcha we will. But where is the political or public will to do it at the moment?

Our cities are clogged and infrastructure can’t cope with the population growth. Plus our rail lines and ports are constricting how much we can export.

In the global game of economic roulette we’ve bet everything on the Chinese commodities boom continuing forever. If it doesn’t we are going to feel the mother of all crashes.

Australia’s biggest exports are coal, iron ore, education and tourism.

Coal and iron ore are booming but education and tourism is being decimated by the strength of the Australian dollar which is seeing customers go to more attractive alternatives.

The current two-speed economy means commodity industries are dragging up the economic averages and masking the devastating impact on the slower industries which, as a result, may never recover to their former glory.

Putting your eggs all in one basket is a massive investment mistake and it’s a massive economic mistake.

The winners from the commodities boom are the big miners (and suppliers) with their super profits, their shareholders reaping a share of those profits and staff earning higher than average wages.

Yes resource companies are big investors but they’re not big employers compared with other industries like tourism, retail and housing. The ripple effect of the boom through the economy is minimal.

In the latest profit reporting season the tax rate from these booming resource companies actually fell.

It’s time to revisit a Super Profits Tax on the commodities boom but instead of the cash going into general Government revenue, it should flow into a Sovereign Wealth Fund similar to many Asian countries.

That Sovereign Wealth Fund should be used to invest in Australia. Whether that investment is to build critical infrastructure or to secure crucial industries, the focus should be investing for the future.

Investing for the crash in commodities so that our economy is strong enough and diversified enough to continue to prosper.

Ken Henry’s advice is, as usual, right on the money.