Questions about Australia, answered from the source

Residential real estate is 65.0 per cent of the loan total the IMF pairs with it at March 2026 — the highest of the nine economies compared, and nearly double Canada's 34.2 per cent. Adding commercial property takes it to 74.7 per cent. Against the IMF's larger standalone loan total the residential share is 53.2 per cent.

Australian deposit-takers returned 11.3 per cent on equity in the December quarter 2025 and 0.92 per cent on assets. A decade earlier the figures were 20.1 and 1.52 per cent, so return on equity is 57 per cent of its 2015 level and return on assets 61 per cent. The fall shows on both measures.

Australian households owed $3.30 trillion at March 2026, an end-quarter stock worth 114.1 per cent of GDP, against a BIS advanced-economy aggregate of 66.0 per cent. Against annualised gross disposable income instead, the IMF puts it at 183.8 per cent. The BIS models debt service at 15.7 per cent of household income.

Australian deposit-takers held regulatory capital worth 20.6 per cent of risk-weighted assets at March 2026, nearly double the 10.9 per cent of September 2008 and third of the ten economies charted here. Non-performing loans were 1.0 per cent of gross loans, and liquid assets rose from 13.4 to 22.7 per cent of total assets.

About six and a half cents in every dollar of net disposable income. Seasonally adjusted, the household saving ratio was 6.5 per cent in the June quarter of 2026, in line with the 6.2 per cent of the 2010s but about half the 1960s-to-1980s norm — after reaching 23.3 per cent in mid-2020 and collapsing to 1.8 in 2023.

No higher than its pre-pandemic peak in the December quarter of 2019, the least flattering base available. Output per hour worked, seasonally adjusted, fell 0.2 per cent over the year to June 2026. Productivity grew 2.3 per cent a year in the decade to 2005; in the decade to 2025 it grew 0.3.

No, on the two-consecutive-quarters convention. Seasonally adjusted chain volume GDP grew 0.4 per cent in the June quarter of 2026 and has not contracted in any quarter since September 2021. Australia met the two-quarter test only twice since 1990, in the first half of 1991 and the first half of 2020. Per person, the picture is harder.

About $2.93 trillion in current prices in the 2025-26 financial year, 5.4 per cent more than 2024-25. Separately, seasonally adjusted chain volume GDP in the June quarter 2026 was 2.1 per cent above the June quarter 2025. On World Bank 2024 data, which for Australia is 2023-24, Australia is the world's fourteenth largest economy.

Good but no longer improving. Australia's infant mortality rate of 3.3 per 1,000 live births in 2024 sits mid-table among OECD members, the same as Germany and the Netherlands, twice Japan's and well below the United States. Estonia and Italy have both pulled ahead since 2015 while Australia stood still.

It depends entirely which goal you pick. Australia has the 8th lowest fine-particle pollution of 38 OECD members and the 4th highest share of women in parliament, but consumes 48 tonnes of material per person a year — 2.8 times the median. On young people out of work it is unremarkable.

Australia committed US$321 million of bilateral ODA to the humanitarian sector in 2024, in constant 2024 prices, which is 10.7% of its bilateral ODA commitments across all sectors. These are commitments — funding signed for, not money paid out — and they exclude core contributions to multilateral agencies.

Papua New Guinea accounted for US$753 million of Australia's net ODA disbursements in 2024, more than three times the next country. Oceania took US$1.52 billion against Asia's US$1.02 billion in 2024, inverting the 2010 position. Africa and the OECD's America aggregate are much diminished. Current-price US dollars.

Australia emitted 19.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per person in 2023-24, the highest of the 41 countries reporting a 2024 figure to the OECD's inventory collection and about 1.9 times the OECD average of 10.3 tonnes. The figure has fallen 25.8 per cent since 2005.

Australia exported $67.6 billion of coal, coke and briquettes in 2025-26 — about 12.7 per cent of everything it sells overseas as goods. That is close to half the $127.4 billion peak of 2022-23. Japan was the largest of the destinations shown, at $20.5 billion, ahead of India and China.