Comment by wenc

You might now know this if you live in North America because Australia hardly enters our consciousness or our news cycles, but in many parts of the world Australia has a reputation of being a very innovative country, especially in physical engineering and software. Part of it has to do with their anti-authoritarian heritage and survivalist mindset--they don't take hierarchy too seriously. Whether their creativity is helped by a generous welfare society or not, I'm not sure, but you definitely can't say Australians aren't innovative.