It’s hard to comprehend how fortunate we are to live on this remote island continent, Australia.

• No-one is inclined to just move in and build “settlements” on our land.
• No-one can build a tunnel under our border or fire cheap rockets over it.
• We have absolutely no experience of “different” people living just the other side of a line drawn for reasons only understood by a bunch of now dead, obscure colonialists or politicians.
• We don’t have to live in the midst of ethnic, religious or cultural enmities that have persisted for centuries.
• We don’t have tens of thousands of desperate North Africans pouring across a narrow sea, or homeless and destitute children pouring over the fence from Central America.
• We are a long way from the source of frightening disease.
• We don’t have to patrol our remote rocky islands with ships and planes or skirmish with neighbours to defend them.
• We don’t have to live in pollution created by others.
• We don’t have to rely on others for access to precious fresh water and food.
• We don’t have millions upon millions of (predominantly young) unemployed, under occupied and resentful citizens.
• We are the 12th biggest economy in the world, supporting a modest population.

So how should we handle this extraordinary good fortune, while lacking the real understanding that comes from standing in others’ shoes?

Is it right, for instance, to:

• Drastically reduce foreign aid so we can spend more money on ourselves?
• Ignore the risks to the planet (particularly many of our Pacific Island neighbours) of changing climate because of our contrary, short term economic self interest?
• Pick Japan as a better friend than China?
• Put up a stop sign on the North West Shelf?
• Put on a sheriff’s badge and throw our weight around in Indonesia or Ukraine?
• Tell Mr Putin he’s an irresponsible bad guy?
• Threaten anyone else we unilaterally decide is a bad guy?
• Try to make the G20 the G19?

Or should we be learners (not preachers), diplomats (not warriors), mediators (not partisans), realists (not idealists)?