Why are Australians anxious and pessimistic?

Who or what has caused our loss of trust in Australia?

Why has a feeling of powerlessness crept in for so many?

Has the luck really run out for the lucky country?

And what can we do to get it back?

Every generation believes its forebears have messed up the planet. That's how we evolve.

But the mood in Australia at the moment, for all ages, seems one of gloom. People are angry. Distrustful. And not just because we are losing Prime Ministers faster than we are losing wickets!

Sport, business, education, banking, farming, religion, trade unions, charities and hospitals have all lost their way through a series of scandals that we must learn from. And disillusion with our leaders is at its peak. Policy has been replaced by politicking.

Commentator, author and former newspaper editor David Fagan asks the questions we all want answered as he traces the not-so-gentle decline of important Australian institutions. Through analysis and interviews with experts he explores what has defined Australia in the past and how we want to be defined in the future. Peeling back the rot that has contaminated almost everything Australians believe in, he asks: are we still the economically, socially and culturally strong country that most aspire to? Should we be alarmed? Or has the laconic Australian drifted from believing 'she'll be right' to being a 'bloody knocker'?

Has the Luck Run Out? shines a spotlight on the mistakes we have made, our national disillusion and looks to what can be done to re-set the mood of the times. And, more importantly, what we have to do to set things right.