- Do you have a story? Email tips@dailymail.com.au Australia in the early 1990s was a country of boarded‑up shopfronts, for sale signs that lingered for months, and queues of job seekers clutching their résumés outside Centrelink offices. Mortgage repayments surged off the back of 17 per cent interest rates, businesses collapsed, and unemployment climbed above 11 per cent as families watched their savings disappear and dreams of home ownership or secure work slip out of reach.