Why should Marla not be interested in this forum? Welcome Marla. It is pleasure to have you. Your opinions and perspectives are appreciated.
As for the theme of this thread, my guess is as good as anyone's. Though, judging by the poor state of our 'secular democracy' and incredibly poor governance, I don't hold out much hope for this nation. We have no pride, no direction (other than towards China) and no ambition. The day before yesterday we were part of Britain, then we wanted to emulate the US (that proved too much hard work). Some Aussies want Australia to be part of Europe, but mostly we are crawling up China's backside.
There are lots of intelligent and engaging people in this country, but for some inexplicable reason they don't find their way into politics. We used to have good politicians a few decades ago, however, they've been bred out. What we now have are smart arses and opportunists (90% of our pollies).
The way I see it, we are currently going through the integration and assimilation process with our geographic region. In other words and 20 years hence, Australia will resemble many of the nations of this region economically, socially and politically. Our current government says that Australia is open for business, but in reality they have turned this nation into one giant bargain basement where everything is up for sale, including our politicians.
Very soon our governments will micro-manage all of us. There will be no privacy, no civil rights, no freedom of expression other than what is prescribed by government. Dissent will not be tolerated and treated as home-grown terrorism. Most Australians will be part of the current emerging class of working poor. They will be under-employed, asset poor and dependent on government handouts.
America will have affordable health care and Australia will not. Just as we already don't have affordable housing, energy, food - you name it, everything in this country is already far too expensive for most Australians and expected to become even more so. We are bleeding jobs to developing countries and our government is implementing policies that import cheap labor from these same countries, to directly compete with Australians for employment.
For many Australians full-time employment is very much a thing of the past. The middle-class is contracting as opportunities and incomes keep shrinking. Australia 20 years from now will have nothing to do with the Australia that was envisioned at Federation.
That is my prediction based on what I observe today. However, I sincerely hope against hope that I am wrong.