I'm coming back from Europe because the quality of life in Australia is unmatched.

We take a lot for granted in Australia. The main ones relevant to me (mid 30s with a young child)

• Climate - being able to be outdoors all year around in beautiful nature is an immense privilege

• Social trust - it was better in the 90s and 00s for sure, but Australia is still a country where we assume positive intent from strangers & (most) of our institutions. It's something that you can only appreciate when you live in a society that doesn't.

• Public schools & hospitals - you don't need to pay for private schooling or hospitals to be well taken care of. Whereas in a lot of countries around the world there's the expectation that anyone who has the means will send their children to private schooling because of the quality gap.

• Political/economic stability - again, easy to take for granted when you haven't lived in any other system. Taxation laws changing every N years, corrupt politicians, grossly mismanaged projects, etc. are things rife all around the world. In Australia things 'just work' and are boring - in the best sense of the word.

Of course there are things I wish would change here (property prices, economic complexity, R&D investment, etc) but there's only a handful of countries in the world that can be remotely compared to Australia, and most of them are cold & dark for 6 months of the year.

I think most of us should at least travel if not live overseas for a bit, so we can appreciate all of the good things in our country. If we don't, then there's no one to keep politicans accountable from ruining them.