Without our addiction to risk, the Aussie government was hardly touched by the downturn.

Arriving in Sydney from the deep economic depression of the Eurozone was a refreshing but curious transition. Not only to the sunny uplands of financial rectitude, but also to a place sheltered from the recessionary storm by an accident of geography and geology.

Having an abundance of some of the word’s most sought after minerals, notably iron ore, and being located as the nearest and most convenient supplier of these riches to the world’s most rapidly growing major economy, China, has stood Australia in very good stead in recent years.

Add in a robust banking system with almost no involvement in the fantasy land of derivatives, sub-prime loans and addiction to risk, and you have the exception that proves most of the rules of the current financial game. Unemployment is a miserly 5% and government debt is only a fraction of the levels endemic throughout Europe.  Business investment is growing strongly. Australia boasts four of the top ten most financially secure banks in the world, according to one credit rating agency.

There is some indication that consumer confidence is recovering from a temporary blip brought on by uncertainty about the timing of the forthcoming general election, now called for next month.

So almost the only clouds on the otherwise sunny wintry horizon are inflation, rising interest rates and much nervousness about one of only two housing bubbles around the globe which has yet to burst (the other being in China).  The Economist’s latest survey of global house prices awards Australia the dubious accolade of having the most over-valued housing in the developed world, based on the relationship to rental values.

Commentators are also niggling away at tales of credit rationing starving small businesses of working capital, just as the wholesale cost of bank funding is escalating to levels which are expected to prompt at least two further interest rate rises in 2010. SME’s are less able to negotiate competitive pricing for their facilities, which makes them far more vulnerable to this upward cost pressure than their larger corporate cousins.

Despite these minor negatives, the glamorous Quay restaurant with its spectacular views of the Sydney Opera House in one direction and the Harbour Bridge in the other seems to have no problem filling all its tables. Even at A$155 per head (nearly £100) for a four course gourmet extravaganza, washed down by top-priced Aussie wines.

Hotels were largely full, as was the flight from Hong Kong, a stark contrast to the two thirds empty planes plying the previously bustling Transatlantic route between London and New York. The air corridor linking Sydney and Melbourne is now the busiest passenger route in the world.

And if there was any doubt that the luck of the Irish has migrated down under, what other government would find a A$5bn revenue windfall hidden away in its books, just after having to concede tax reductions of almost exactly the same magnitude to its vital mining industry and only a few weeks before facing its electorate? The UK’s new Coalition Government can only dream of such good fortune.

Fears are growing that a property bubble may burst - and a national obsession with gambling doesn't help, says Nick Hood.

The newspaper hoarding said it all: “Lending Falls as Fears of a Double Dip Grow”. Hong Kong is feeling the chill as China’s headlong growth rate threatens to fall to the crisis level of an annualised rate of only 10.6% in the second quarter of 2010, down from 11.9% in the first quarter.

Hong Kong’s economic soothsayers believe that the social stability of China depends on maintaining a growth rate that almost all the rest of the world can only marvel at and never hope to match.  And any problems in China will be magnified many times over in Hong Kong through the prism of its role as the economic conduit between East and West in both financial services and trade.

Fears are growing that a property bubble may burst as the Chinese authorities try to moderate rampant speculation, as well as about what impact there will be on bank liquidity and lending from some distinctly sub-standard returns on major mainland infrastructure projects.

Activity in the insolvency and restructuring markets is well below the expectations of many professionals, and not because the robust financial health of China means that there are no businesses or individuals to be rescued. Rather because many banks in Hong Kong are turning their face against work out proposals, mainly through indifference to the fate of their over-extended borrowers.

One unexpected source of work for these vampires of the recession is the continuing success of casinos in Macao, and the widespread gambling addiction of Hong Kong entrepreneurs. Several apparently thriving restaurants in Kowloon’s seafood district have changed hands recently as gambling debts have laid their owners’ credit ratings low.

It was no great surprise either when officials of the Hong Kong Jockey Club confirmed that total bets placed so far this year at the races are 11.5% up on 2009.  Feelings of uncertainty and insecurity only serve to fuel the Chinese passion for trying to beat the odds.

As always, Hong Kong’s streets and air-conditioned inter-building walkways were teeming, but there were few shoppers in the endless malls of luxury goods stores and the windows of Marks & Spencer were plastered with sale signs.

Empty taxis were in plentiful supply both at lunchtime and late in the evening, suggesting that the current depressed mood is reinforcing the saving habits of the Chinese community and curbing the rampant consumption habits of ex-pats.

There also seemed an air of listlessness about the crowds, with much less than the usual scurrying urgency. Perhaps betraying the financial uncertainties that are preying on so many of their minds, as well as concerns about the ever growing influence of Beijing.

How interesting then that for the very first time, the head of the Stock Exchange does not speak Cantonese but Mandarin. This is a clear sign that the greater concern is no longer with the Territory’s local business and investor community, but instead with the mainland authorities and the Mandarin-speaking investors from China’s nouveau riche cadre of factory owners and property developers.