While the economy recorded its best year ever in 2025, life dissatisfaction hit a new low, asAlan Austinreports.

PERHAPS WE NEED a name for this syndrome. It is an intriguing phenomenon, but also deeply troubling, as it reveals declining mental health.

As Australians achieved their highest material living standards ever last year, their enjoyment of life and community engagement, as assessed by the Bureau of Statistics (ABS), plummeted.

Asdiscussedearly last year, Australians have the best life of anyone on the planet, based on objective criteria, but ranked a miserable tenth on OxfordsHappiness Index. In this years rankings, Australianstumbledto 15th.

Australias housing crisis isnt just a clash between generations, but a deepening class divide hidden beneath the rhetoric of the fair crack.

Highest living standards ever

We now know 2025 was thefirst timeon record that Australians achieved these four excellent outcomes simultaneously over a full year:

• jobless below 4.5%;
• inflation below 4%;
• interest rates between 3% to 5%; and
• annual GDP growth above 2.5%.

Australia was the only country in 2025 to enjoy those four outcomes plus triple A ratings with all major credit agencies. Denmark, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Vietnam ticked four of those five boxes, but only Australia ticked all five in the world!

Datasets confirming the best-ever quality of life include:

• record number of overseasflights: 12.55 million;

• median wealthsecond highest in the world: US$268,424 (AU$370,137);

• record percentage of students attending fee-payingprivate schools: 37.2%;
• recordhome loans: $383.5 billion;
• record consumerspendingto GDP;
• record percentage of retail spending ondining out: 13.8%;
• record consumer spending on cosmetics, jewellery and otherluxuries;
• record sales ofelectric cars;
• record single and twin-enginedlight aircraftregistered;
• record highjobsto population: 64.6%;
• recordminimum wage,pensionsand benefits, all up more than inflation; and
• record families insocial housing: 429,212.

As job losses, inflation and weak growth impact many economies, Australia advances apace.

Life satisfaction in severe decline

According to last Tuesdays ABS general social survey results, life satisfaction in 2025 was well down on 2019, when Australias economy was close to the worst-performed among OECD members.

Overall life satisfaction in 2019 was rated high or very high by 77.6% of the population. That plummeted to 68.3% in 2025. Only 6.2% of citizens experienced low life satisfaction in 2019. That jumped to 9.7% in 2025.

Yet, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)reportedlast month, on overall budget balance, Australia ranked last among developed nations in 2019. The economy trailed badly then also on economic growth, government debt, globalinnovationand the jobless rate.

Mainstream newsrooms continue to foment fear and anxiety

The problem, of course, is that most Aussies have no idea how well they are travelling relative to past periods and to the rest of the world.

The news media steadfastly refused to report last years impressive results, claiming instead that the Australian dream wasdead, monetary policy was ahorror scenarioand afailed experimenthaunting Australia, whose verysurvivalis at stake, and the economy wasanightmare, acrisisand adire reality.

Last weeks jump in the interest rate provided another example.

Interest rates are finallyclimbingtowards 5%, offering relief to long-suffering savers who rely on interest to survive, but have been denied a fair go since 2013.

Interest rates are now smack in the middle of the optimum range, 3% to 5%, which balances the needs of both savers and home buyers. See chart below.

(Data source:Reserve Bank)

Newsrooms distort the reality

The RBAsdecisionshould have been welcomed as an inspired outcome. It dampens the risk of inflation accelerating while disadvantaging neither borrowers nor lenders. Win-win-win.

Instead, it was depicted asbrutal,disastrous,risking recession,another blowandpouring petrol on the inflation fire.

The Murdoch tabloidssaid: Were inching closer to the recession we didnt need to have. ABC Newsfalsifiedthe record with: Opposition blames Labor for inflation, rate hike. Sky News, fuelling Australias deteriorating mental health,declared: People are giving up hope. Absolute destructive nonsense!

Yes, mortgagees will now pay more. But they cannegotiatethe repayment schedule to avoid hardship and will eventuallyrecovermore than the extra outlays via the associated increase in property values.

Abundant evidence that all is well

The RBAsreportlast Tuesday contained remarkably upbeat forecasts, given the global turmoil resulting from the madness of U.S. PresidentTrumps kleptocracy.

GDP growth is expected to be 1.9% this financial year and 1.3% in the next. Yes, thats historically weak, but nowhere near a recession.

Inflation is forecast at 4.8% for June this year and just 2.4% at June next year. Given inflationvariedbetween 7.5% and 18% for most of the period from June 1973 to June 1990, that is extremely benign.

Surprisingly, the jobless rate, which is now 4.26%, is expected to be 4.2% this June and 4.4% in June 2027.

All these compare favourably with the rest of the world.

In fact, Australiasinflationrate since January has risen just 0.73%. Theincrementshave been above 1% in Austria, Finland, Portugal, Poland, Turkey and Chile; higher than 1.8% in France, Italy, Luxembourg and the USA; and above 2.8% in Belgium and Greece.

The more their quality of life improves, the sadder some Australians seem to become.

Supportive behaviour impacted

Last weeks ABS social survey shows that Australians' engagement in the community has declined sharply as wealth has increased and misery has advanced.

Citizens who undertook unpaid voluntary work fell from 29.5% in 2019 to 22.6% in 2025. Those who provided unpaid support for non-household members dropped from 51.5% to 45.4%. Participants in community support groups slipped from 25.3% to just 20.7%.

Disturbingly, face-to-face contact with family or friends living outside the household tumbled from 67.8% to just 52.9%.

So Australians are not just more despondent but also less practically helpful.

Newsrooms telling the truth would fix this. Now, theres a happy thought.

Alan Austinis an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him@alanaustin001and [email protected].

Related Articles

• Farmers are anxious, but still in a pretty good paddock
• Global agencies give Australias economy thumbs up
• Boycott newsroom liars and restore Australias absent self-assurance
• Specialists refuse to correctly diagnose best economy ever
• No longer true that the rich keep getting richer as the poor get poorer