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Greg Sheridan recently warned that Australia is a nation in decline — from rising debt to falling fertility and a loss of hope. At the heart of it all? A spiritual vacuum we’ve tried to ignore.

“Australia is a nation in decline,” wrote veteran journalist Greg Sheridan over the weekend.

“Across every indicator you can imagine — economy, living standards, social cohesion, crime, health, military capability, the creativity and virtuosity of the arts — we’re in serious decline.”

His Weekend Australian article has caused no small stir — not just for its bold thesis, but for the arsenal of facts Sheridan marshalled in support of his case.

While I have a much deeper interest in social issues than economic ones, it has become very clear to me in recent years that the two are linked — and that an economy in decline is a recipe for social disaster.

Families that can’t afford a home and struggle to pay for life’s necessities stop having children. Mums and dads forced to work longer hours spend less time with their children — and each other. Young people who believe a stable future is beyond reach stop aspiring. And as the national debt balloons, mental health declines, and anxiety and despair set in, our institutions lose their legitimacy and Australia’s social fabric frays.

In short, economic woes are a fast track to social declension — and Greg Sheridan has rightly lamented both in his sobering analysis of mid-2020s Australia.

The Numbers Behind the Decline

So what data did Sheridan present?

On Australia’s economy and living standards, the situation is dire. Our national debt has now surpassed $1 trillion, not including the billions in hidden, “off-budget” borrowing. Just paying the interest on that debt costs Australians $27 billion every year — and that figure is only rising.

At the same time, productivity — the output of each worker — has fallen by 5% under the Albanese government, while real incomes have plummeted 8% in just three years — the worst performance of any nation in the OECD. Additionally, Australia’s top tax rate kicks in at lower income levels than in the US or UK, meaning that Aussies are taxed more even as they earn less.

Housing is no better. The median house price is now nine times the average income — and in Sydney, it’s a staggering thirteen times. By contrast, in the 1970s and 80s, house prices were just three or four times the average annual salary.

Is it any wonder, then, that Australia’s fertility rate has crashed to 1.44 children per woman? This is a historic low for our nation, and global data suggests it will be extremely difficult to reverse, even if the economy improves.

Australia’s education standards are also dropping:

• Australian students are 4 years behind top Asian countries in maths
• In 2023, 15-year-olds performed like 14-year-olds from 20 years ago
• 1 in 3 students failed basic reading and maths in 2024
• We spend more than the OECD average per student but get worse results

Our health is also going backwards:

• Two-thirds of Australians are overweight or obese
• Life expectancy is now dropping
• Suicide is the leading cause of death for Aussies aged 15–44
• Youth mental illness is up 50% in 15 years
• Australia ranks second after the US for rising mental health issues

If all that weren’t enough, energy, mining, and manufacturing — once the backbone of Australian prosperity — are now in steady retreat.

Electricity prices have climbed significantly, driven by costly Net Zero policies. While a mixed energy grid that makes use of gas and coal would be more affordable, Australia is doubling down on renewables. By contrast, the so-called “big emitters” — China, India and the US — no longer believe in Net Zero, putting Australia out of step and limping behind. Amid these developments, we’ve lost critical industries like urea (used in fertiliser), plastics, and nickel, which are vital to our economic sovereignty.

Further Evidence of Australia’s Decline

Just days after Sheridan’s article went to press, former federal MP Craig Kelly published an X thread featuring 26 graphs that painted a very similar picture.

While I’ll leave it up to readers to assess each graph on its merits, the broad brushstrokes Kelly presented, summarised below, are deeply concerning.

Australia has recorded the sharpest income decline in the developed world for two consecutive years, with real per capita household incomes falling faster than at any point in our history. GDP per capita has gone backwards in 8 of the last 10 quarters — a clear sign the average Australian’s share of the economic pie is shrinking.

To mask this decline, Kelly suggests, the Albanese government has ramped up migration to unprecedented levels, far beyond the nation’s housing capacity. This has caused house prices and rents to skyrocket, pushing housing affordability to the worst level in the developed world. Outright home ownership has collapsed as Australians take on bigger mortgages over longer terms — and hope of owning a home is slipping out of reach for the middle class.

Meanwhile, Australia’s commitment to Net Zero has seen the closure of coal-fired power stations — once the backbone of our competitive advantage — in favour of costly renewables. As energy prices rise, Australian manufacturing has entered “terminal decline” and now makes up the smallest share of GDP of any nation in the OECD. By contrast, China is building 421 GW of new coal power while we’re shutting down our last 21 GW.

Job growth is now concentrated in the debt-funded public sector, not in productive enterprise. Australia’s bureaucracy is among the most bloated in the world, and the cost of government continues to grow. With our economic complexity rating falling, fertility rates collapsing, and younger Australians losing faith in the future, Kelly argues, we’re at risk of becoming the first generation to pass on a country poorer, weaker, and less free than the one we inherited.

26 graphs that evidence Australia is a nation in sharp decline. A thread 🧵

1 of 26

With the destructive insanity of Net Zero – excessive migration causing a housing crisis – an ever-growing bloated bureaucracy – and the erosion of freedom of speech, Australia’s golden era… pic.twitter.com/VU36e18QqK

— Craig Kelly (@craigkellyAFEE) May 25, 2025

Our Decline is Spiritual — and Reversible

While Greg Sheridan offers a more measured diagnosis than Craig Kelly, he concludes that “Australia is a first-rate nation whose leaders just now are determining we’ll be second-rate.”

Our decline is “gentle”, he qualifies, and it began from a towering summit — “a high standard of living and national success”. Even so, warns Sheridan, “because we’ve been so affluent we’re like the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water, increasingly uncomfortable but not sure why.”

So, what’s the solution to our national mess? While Sheridan’s article doesn’t explicitly propose one, he strongly signals the need for Australia to reassess its energy policy, reform industry, and take education more seriously.

But, like me, Greg Sheridan is a Christian — and I’m sure he’d agree that our many economic and social problems did not arise in a vacuum but reflect a deeper spiritual deterioration.

So, here’s my diagnosis.

It’s 2025 — an era once imagined to showcase flying cars, a cure for cancer, and such wealth that work would be replaced by leisure. Instead, we are — very measurably — a nation in retreat.

Here’s where we went astray: the progress of the past was built on Christian foundations. Christianity furnished our civilisation with the values that made us prosperous: duty, honesty, integrity, responsibility, humility, productivity, morality — and hope.

But somewhere along the line, we traded Christ for secularism, and assumed that secularism could keep producing these virtues in us. It hasn’t. And now, no amount of public debt or wealth redistribution can paper over the cracks.

Yes, Australia needs a better crop of leaders than those we recently re-elected. But more than this, Australia needs a national renaissance that bypasses the confines of Canberra and is born in the hearts of its people.

Indeed, our reliance on government is part of the problem. This is the irony of swelling socialism: as faith diminishes and social upheaval sets in, the state steps in to fill the spiritual void, offering itself as a stabilising force, a surrogate provider, and a substitute for God. But the more power we give it, the more of our finances and freedoms we’re forced to surrender.

It’s time to look elsewhere. It’s time to look up.

Government has a role to play, but true and lasting hope comes from God alone, whose eternal kingdom offers the only secure foundation for national and spiritual prosperity.

When we put our faith in Christ, we are promised an eternal inheritance “that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:4). This is not merely a distraction from our earthly woes — it is a solution to them.

As C.S. Lewis explained in Mere Christianity, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

Australia, let’s set our hearts on heaven — because with God in His rightful place in Australia, the sky’s the limit.

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Image courtesy of Unsplash.