Among other things, it has been used in reference to Australia's natural resources, weather, history, its early dependency of the British system, distance from problems elsewhere in the world, and other sorts of supposed prosperity.

In addition to political and economic weaknesses, he also lamented on the lack of innovation and ambition, as well as a philistinism in the absence of art, among the Australian population, viewed by Horne as being complacent and indifferent to intellectual matters.

I didn't mean that it had a lot of material resources … I had in mind the idea of Australia as a [British] derived society whose prosperity in the great age of manufacturing came from the luck of its historical origins … In the lucky style we have never "earned" our democracy.

We simply went along with some British habits.In the decades following his book's publication, Horne became critical of the "lucky country" phrase being used as a term of endearment for Australia.

[6] It was published at a time when criticism of Australia, which had experienced an ascension to wealth and prosperity in a relatively short history (the country was federated in 1901), was rife.