Credit:Simon Letch And yet, the scoff squad was out even before Turnbull had a chance to fully outline his idea. High-speed rail is too expensive. Politicians have proposed it before and it goes nowhere. It is a "thought bubble" – Australia's version of the monorail on The Simpsons (that was a spectacular sham). The howlers of derision barely had time to pause for breath, however, before the Reserve Bank released the new $5 note design on Tuesday. The note's new security features and the fact it's the first Australian banknote to include tactile markings (so blind people can tell what it is) went largely unremarked. Cash users were more concerned that the bright wattle pattern looks like "anthrax spores". Others labelled it "the most hideous banknote in history" as if "Ken Done just threw up on a sheet of polymer".

High speed rail draws ridicule each time it emerges as a political issue. Credit:AP There was nothing surprising about any of this head-shaking reaction, of course. It is a much-honoured national pastime to shoot down different ideas (big or small) and resist even the slightest hint of change. We might be surrounded by sea, but we are also girt by the status quo. More than 50 years ago, Donald Horne had a considered rant about how Australia was a "lucky" country that lived on "other people's ideas". In his classic book, Horne talked of a social climate that was "largely inimical to originality" and of leaders who lacked curiosity about the events around them. Has anything really changed since then? Sure, Australia has had bursts of ideas (like, say, during those krazy Whitlam years), but these are the exceptions to the rule.

Big ideas bubble up from time to time before they are banished to a dark corner of the national consciousness, where they sit in cold storage marked 'NOT FOR AGES' We are even highly skeptical of the idea of ideas. Witness the mass eyebrow raising over Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit back in 2008. Sweeping into power after 11 years of John Howard, Rudd invited 1000 experts to Parliament House to talk about where the country should be in twelve years' time. Delegates hadn't even put texta to butchers paper and the whole thing was dismissed as a pointless ego-flexing exercise. Other big ideas bubble up from time to time before they are banished to a dark corner of the national consciousness, where they sit in cold storage marked "NOT FOR AGES". Meanwhile, seemingly comparable countries put Australia in the shade when it comes to confronting similar concepts. New Zealand went as far as having a referendum on the design of its flag this year and Scotland had one on whether it should be independent from the UK. Ireland voted to change its constitution and legalise same-sex marriage.

Away from the warm fuzzy social identity stuff, there is constant talk about the pressing need to reform the Australian tax system. Endless papers are produced and policies are floated, only to be hastily batted away again. This isn't just a symptom of the Turnbull government circa 2016. It happened under Labor, too (remember the bells and whistles Henry Tax Review AKA wonk's ultimate bookshelf decorator?). Some like to blame Australia's aversion to change or bold ideas on our fledgling island nation history. We like to look inward and tread carefully. And we love to take the mickey. But our politicians are also culpable here. On Thursday, while talking about another idea – legalising euthanasia – and why it is largely absent from the political agenda, Bob Hawke blamed the fear factor.

"Politicians, by definition I think, are not the bravest of people ... They hear some people in the electorate or something in the media saying, 'We don't like that', and that's almost enough for them to say, 'We won't touch it'," Hawkie told Radio National. "Their first concern is saving their seat, they don't want to do anything that is going to lose them votes ... It's not very brave." Politicians also have a unfortunate habit of overpromising and underdelivering on ideas. Despite the hype, when Rudd got around to responding to the 2020 Summit report (more than a year later), he adopted about nine of the 962 proposals. So the average dude in the street has good reason to be cynical. But politicians of course exist within a broader political culture that would rather make digs about change than seriously ponder its merits. If voters are cynical and resistant to change, they hardly create the sort of climate that helps MPs go out on limb. Or even a shuffle slightly in any direction that might be interesting or creative.

So politicians and voters go round and round in circles reinforcing each other's worst tendencies. Turnbull has talked a lot about innovation in recent months. The focus so far has been on maths, science and whiz-bang technology. But maybe we need to focus on more low-tech initiatives as well. Like a simple receptiveness to something new. Follow us on Twitter