Wow, I can only imagine your frustration. I moved here 3 years ago and was quite shocked when I learned that Australia was not a leader in solar energy technologies. China's commodity bonanza has been both a positive and a negative to the Australia economy, it is unfortunate that more of that boom money was not invested into other areas of the economy. Canada has experienced a similar scenario with the oil boom of the early 2010 but there has been recent interest in investing in IT, technology and quantum computing.

I wish you the best of luck mate, take care.