THE FUTURE IS always arriving, in one form or another. There is no no future. It’s an absurdly simple point, like saying that one plus one equals two. But despite its apparent simplicity, it bears remembering because its corollary has far-reaching consequences: that the future will come regardless of our capacity to imagine and articulate a vision for it. Which in turn leads to another obvious but easily missed point: that any failure of the imagination vis-à-vis the future does not prevent the future arriving, but only leaves it susceptible to the visions of others. Or, to put it another way: the future belongs to those who dare to imagine it.

I first learnt the truth of that maxim in the spring of 2015, when I was invited to the nation’s capital for the inaugural Junket, an ‘un-conference’ where two hundred of Australia’s ‘best and brightest young minds’, its ‘game-changers’ and future leaders, would gather to ‘share ideas, get advice, be inspired, innovate, teach, learn, network and have fun – all with the (suitably ambitious) aim of helping set the agenda for Australia’s future’.