This paper revisits the traditional economic consumption function, in timeseries
form. Motives of economic agents differ. We locate the decision to
consume by households in a brief economic-philosophical consideration of
motives and causation. Of special interest are the original constructions of
John Maynard Keynes. The aim here is to describe how consumption figures in
the Australian economy. This translates in practice into explaining the
consumption mechanism and accounting for it with reasonable empirical
confidence. We assume that readers understand reasonably well how national
income accounting works. While Australia, 1960 to 2005, will act as a case
study, the description should have wider validity.