The government's white paper clings to the past as the rest of the world moves on | Tony Milne

Instead of imagining the kind of world we want to live in and the role Australia could play in it, the foreign policy paper paints a bleak picture for our future

There are moments in history that come to define the world changing. After years or even decades of doing things a certain way, suddenly, everything changes. We look back, often in bemusement, shame or anger, and wonder how people accepted a certain way of doing things.

Changes once fiercely resisted become archaic: corporal punishment in schools, slavery, women and Aboriginal people denied the right to vote, the death penalty, LGBTIQ people denied the right to marry, the institutionalisation of people with disabilities " the list goes on.