Is this our national identity? Credit:Darrian Traynor Fast-forward 14 years and a bout of navel gazing would do us no harm at all. Australia Day beckons as an opportunity for the country to reflect on the self-image that has endured for generations and to ponder if it still passes the pub test. Howard summed up many of the qualities that make up the nation's image of itself in that speech of 1995: the embrace of "practical mateship"; the egalitarian ethos; the shunning of pretension and pomposity; a fierce and irreverent scepticism; and a level of tolerance and warm-heartedness "for which we have given ourselves too little credit". How do these qualities assert themselves in the national identity today? Internationally, the phrase that used to come to mind was that we "punched above our weight", whether the cause was advancing peace, human rights, prosperity or openness. But not so much now.

"Endless bouts of introspection and navel gazing are unhealthy," John Howard declared 21 years ago. Credit:Fairfax Media Somewhere, in the midst of Australia's longest run of economic growth, and some time after Howard's decision to join the invasion of Iraq, the plucky country lost its mojo. Without even realising it, we became the No We Can't nation. Like the drinker who leaves the bar to avoid his or her shout, we opted out. One reflection of this is the lists of countries that have bills of rights; or one of their own as their head of state; or a treaty or compact with their First Peoples; or laws that allow people of the same sex to marry. Australia is conspicuously absent on all of them. Another is the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the rising number of people living on the street. Another is the retreat from any aspiration to show global leadership on climate change, replaced as it is with a grudging willingness to follow if others are prepared to lead.

Then there is the treatment of those who fled persecution, but arrived without an invitation. Our peculiar achievement has been to make vulnerable people even more vulnerable: banish them to remote foreign islands or impose unique hardships on those on the mainland. The indefinite detention of those on bridging visas who are accused of minor offences after these issues are resolved is but one example. "We've retreated into a delusionary mental bubble where self-interest is a prime motivator," says Tim Costello, the chief advocate of World Vision Australia, who cites the slashing of Australia's foreign aid budget as one manifestation. "We like to think of Australia as an egalitarian nation, but it is clearly less so in 2017 than it was a couple of decades ago," he tells me. "We are still hamstrung to some extent by the fortress state of mind that states we are safer if we are cut off from the rest of the world – from refugees, asylum seekers and migrants – and from those suffering in our own nation from inequalities, like the homeless and the Indigenous." Gareth Evans, the architect of the Cambodian peace plan when he was foreign minister in the Hawke and Keating years, expresses it this way. "The spirit of creative adventure does seem to be dead in the water.

"There is very little underlying optimism about the possibility of Australia doing great things, both internationally and domestically, which sustained it throughout the Hawke-Keating years." Social researcher Hugh Mackay, who has been monitoring the national mood for decades, suggests three reasons for this troubling transformation. "One reason is that economic prosperity, courtesy of the mining boom, made us complacent. Another is that we allowed our insecurities in the face of social change and the global threat of terror to make us more timid, more prejudiced and more conservative," he says. "A third, and deeper, reason is that modern politics has become a tediously predictable game of 'marketing', leaders have been reduced to 'brands', courage has been replaced by an over-scripted cautiousness, and democracy has become confused with populism." Populism is, of course, a global phenomenon and Donald Trump is not the only example of a leader who has prospered by exploiting fear and prejudice. He is just the most striking example.

The antidote is visionary leadership, and our problem is that we don't have it. The Prime Minister says his top priority is to provide national and economic security but, as Mackay points out, that is not nearly enough. "Australians complain, loudly and often, about the quality of contemporary leadership, and their basic complaint is always the same: where is the vision? Where is the story?" he says. "Our 'lifestyle' – or even our fundamentally sound economy – are hardly a sufficient cause for national pride, let alone celebration. Such things neither define nor inspire us. What inspires us are the imaginative ideas, the bold proposals that bring out the best in us, and give us a glimpse of a better society – fairer, more just, more compassionate, more humane." Furthering the cause of Indigenous reconciliation through the process of constitutional recognition looms as one opportunity, and the appointment of Ken Wyatt as the country's first Aboriginal federal minister is an important milestone. But bold ideas won't be enough to restore the nation's sense of self, even if political leaders have the courage and imagination to advance them. If the most basic, and most enduring, of Australian values is the notion a fair go, it simply has to apply to all of us.

Michael Gordon is political editor.