downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 54589.08articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Australia
Strongest usable evidence: Agency, at 89.2. Raise Building first, at 39.5. Experimentation needs more evidence: confidence is 0.33.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.57 | 39.5 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 51.2 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.36 | 70.8 |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 93.2 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: Resource exporter far from its markets, with high administrative capacity.
Anticipation83.4Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Australia
Read Australia beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Coordination | 0.40 | 3 of 5 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | -0.3(2) | 74.0 | -9.4 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.36 | 3 of 6 | 0.78 | no trend | 68.0 | -2.8 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -2.2(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +0.9(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
-0.3 over 10 years, from 83.7 in 2016 to 83.4 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 88.971index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2021
1.9 % of GDP, rank 17 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2010
4,569 per million people, rank 22 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
The value is from 2010, more than 15 years old.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
44,299 per million people, rank 20 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 75.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
Panelist B's gap between knowing and preparing is a point I already partly priced and cannot fully answer: royal commissions repeatedly name bushfire and flood risk and preparation still lags, so I move down three points. The Productivity Commission, Intergenerational Report and ABS remain durable institutions that keep me above the others.
- 74.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
I rise slightly because panelist A is right that the Productivity Commission, Intergenerational Reports and CSIRO are durable institutions that persist across governments. I stay below the indicator score because bushfire, flood and housing risks were foreseen in reports and prepared for poorly.
- 70.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I move up from 68 to 70. Panelist A's named bodies (Productivity Commission, Treasury intergenerational report, CSIRO) are institutionalised conversion, which answers my endowment worry. I still discount below the 83 indicator score because the knowing-versus-preparing gap on bushfire and flood is repeated.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 18.061per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 3count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 7.5mean 1-10
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
96.1 % of population, rank 9 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
98 % aged 15+, rank 20 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2025
134 % of GDP, rank 9 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 35.5hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 100.63percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.928index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2025
5.063 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Cooperative Research Centres programme
Australia's Department of Industry reported that its Cooperative Research Centres portfolio facilitated 304 businesses establishing research-focused collaborations in 2023–24, across 114 CRC and 190 CRC Projects partners, above the year's target of 248.
304 businesses, businesses establishing research-focused collaborations, 2024. 248 businesses, portfolio target, 2024. Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Annual Report 2023–24, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Australia funds industry-led research centres for three to ten years and shorter CRC Projects for up to three years, giving firms and researchers a shared programme, matching resources and a governance structure for applied work. The long and short formats let a mature collaboration and a focused translation project coexist.
Limits: The partner count measures collaborations facilitated through grant agreements, not completed research, commercialisation, additionality or university-only links. It is an administrative portfolio measure whose reporting and retrospective calculations can change, and partners include research organisations and community bodies alongside universities and businesses.
New Payments Platform, the shared fast-payment rail
The New Payments Platform, whose payments the Reserve Bank of Australia settles one by one in central bank money through the Fast Settlement Service of its RITS system, settled a daily average of 3.6 million transactions in 2024/25, almost 19 percent more than in 2023/24, worth A$4.7 billion a day.
3,600,000 transactions per day, fast settlement service (npp) daily average transactions settled, 2024/25. 4,700,000,000 Australian dollars per day, fast settlement service (npp) daily average value settled, 2024/25. Reserve Bank of Australia, Annual Report 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Reserve Bank set real-time payment objectives after its 2012 strategic review and built the Fast Settlement Service, while banks jointly financed, built and governed the switching platform and overlay services, so that every participating account could send and receive in seconds around the clock.
Limits: The figure counts settlements in the Reserve Bank's Fast Settlement Service, which exists to settle NPP payments; it is a volume measure, not evidence of reach, outage resilience, fraud losses or how much activity is additional to existing direct entry. The annual report shows the Reserve Bank's half of the arrangement (settlement in RITS, fifteen institutions settling NPP payments directly) but does not say who built, owns or governs the NPP itself; it names NPP Australia Limited only in its glossary, so the industry side of the partnership rests on sources outside this document. The NPP is still the smaller rail for account-to-account payments: the report's Graph 2.3.4 shows bulk electronic clearing (BECS) still carrying more daily volume, and the industry's proposed decommissioning of BECS, which the report discusses, is not yet done. The 2018 launch year is not stated in the annual report. The number is on page 99 of the PDF. The rba.gov.au host refuses scripted requests (Akamai 'Access Denied'); the PDF was read through WebFetch at the same URL. The Reserve Bank reports on a service it owns and operates.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 402days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.507% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.653scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 48.5% agreeing
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- one year
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 47.5% expressing trust
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- one year
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Confidence in the courtsJoint EVS/WVS (E069_17), 2022
14 % a great deal, higher is better. Share of survey respondents saying they have a great deal of confidence in the justice system and courts, of the four answers a great deal, quite a lot, not very much and none at all, in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017 to 2022 survey round.
Confidence in the courts is the public half of what this capability asks: whether people expect the rules to be enforced when a stranger breaks them. It is not scored because the survey answer reads two things the number cannot tell apart. Where courts are independent, confidence is a judgment of how they perform. Where they answer to the state, it is also deference, and saying otherwise to an interviewer has a cost. In this frame the pattern runs the wrong way. India, the Philippines and Indonesia, all electoral autocracies in the V-Dem 2025 classification, lead on the share saying a great deal, and Vietnam and China, the two closed autocracies surveyed, lead once quite a lot is counted too. The ten electoral autocracies average 21.8 percent saying a great deal and the two closed autocracies 28.1, against 13.6 for liberal and 8.4 for electoral democracies. Scored, it would rank highest the states whose courts are least able to rule against them. Income is not why it is left out: the share correlates about -0.18 with log GDP per capita. The value is the share saying a great deal; the share saying quite a lot is in the source note.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.77index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 57.741% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- one year
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.84ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2024
108 % gross, rank 6 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2022
5.1 % of GDP, rank 38 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2018
28.9 % of secondary, rank 19 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
VET FEE-HELP, and its abolition
Australia's VET FEE-HELP loan scheme, introduced in 2008 to fund higher-level vocational courses, grew from fewer than 3,500 loans in 2009 to 196,108 in 2015, and was abolished and replaced from 1 January 2017 by VET Student Loans, which reached 53,892 students in 2019.
196,108 loans, vet fee-help loans at the scheme's peak, 2015. 53,892 students, vet student loans recipients under the replacement scheme, 2019. Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, The Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and related loans: a chronology (Carol Ey, 23 March 2021), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Commonwealth extended income-contingent loans to vocational diplomas and opened them to private providers with light entry controls; providers and brokers enrolled students at scale, Parliament then legislated the scheme's closure and replaced it with capped loans for approved courses and providers.
Limits: Loans are not learners: the count is loans issued, not adults who studied or completed, and the Library's own note says the 2017 onward figures count students while earlier years count loans or places, so the peak and the successor figure are not on the same unit and the fall cannot be read as a precise percentage. Much of the 2013 to 2015 growth was not learning at all: the Senate Education and Employment Committee's report on the replacement bills (https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/VETStudentLoans/Report/c02) records loan value rising from $26 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015 alongside 'unscrupulous behaviour by a small number of providers and poor student outcomes', so the peak overstates real adult participation and the reversal is partly a correction of fraud rather than a loss of capability. The loans cover only diploma-level and above vocational courses, a small slice of adult learning; the record says nothing about the national share of adults in training, which the ABS measures separately. The Auditor-General's audit of the scheme (ANAO report 31 of 2016-17) is the primary account of the failure, but the ANAO site did not open from here, so its figures are not used. The source is a secondary compilation by the Parliamentary Library from departmental annual reports, and 2016 figures are missing from it.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-2.2 over 10 years, from 55.7 in 2016 to 53.5 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-15.2 over 20 years, from 68.7 in 2006 to 53.5 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2966per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 97211per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2584per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 694189per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
ASIC enhanced regulatory sandbox
Australia's government introduced the enhanced regulatory sandbox on 1 September 2020, letting firms test financial services and credit activities for up to 24 months without a licence, and ASIC's register lists 23 users, four current and 19 past.
23 entities, entities listed as current or past users of the enhanced regulatory sandbox exemption, 2026-10-02. Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Enhanced regulatory sandbox (ERS), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Parliament and Treasury put a licensing exemption into regulation, so an eligible firm can notify ASIC and start testing within set client and exposure limits, rather than applying for case-by-case relief.
Limits: The 23 is ours, counted from the two expandable lists ('Current users' 4, 'Past users' 19) on the day of retrieval; the page carries no headline total or reference date, and the lists change as exemptions start and lapse. Users notify ASIC rather than being selected, so the count measures take-up of an exemption, not supervised trials, and the page does not say how many past users went on to obtain a licence or simply stopped. Twenty-three users in six years is small for Australia's financial sector. ASIC's earlier sandbox, which the ERS superseded, is not counted.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 4.09% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 21.8% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.287index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.12% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
80.6 % aged 15+, rank 12 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
36.5 per 100 people, rank 24 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2024
4.7 % of output, rank 15 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT)
No value for this country. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Australia's Treasury designed, Parliament legislated and the tax office began paying the JobKeeper wage subsidy just over five weeks after its announcement on 30 March 2020, and in its first phase it supported on average around 925,000 businesses and 3.6 million individuals each month before ending on 28 March 2021.
5 weeks (just over), time from announcement to first jobkeeper payments, 2020-05. 3,600,000 individuals, individuals supported each month, first phase average, 2020-09. Australian Government, The Treasury, Insights from the first six months of JobKeeper, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: Treasury designed a flat-rate wage subsidy and the Australian Taxation Office paid it through the single-touch payroll and business registration systems it already ran, so Parliament could legislate eligibility and money reached employers within about five weeks.
Limits: Treasury is evaluating its own programme, and the five-week figure is a statement in prose, not a timestamped series. Speed was bought by routing payment through existing tax-office systems and a flat $1,500 fortnightly rate, which shipped known errors: the same report finds around $8.9 billion went to businesses whose turnover rose, and the 2023 Independent Evaluation of the JobKeeper Payment (https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-10/p2023-455038.pdf) records that around 2 million short-term casual and temporary-visa employees were excluded, that the first-phase cost estimate of $130 billion, which a reporting error had inflated, was revised down to $70 billion, and that JobKeeper was announced 'later than job retention schemes in comparable countries'. The total cost was $88.8 billion. One emergency response shows the state can change programmes quickly under extreme pressure; it does not show routine responsiveness of rules in normal times, which is what the indicator's construct mostly asks about. Coverage counts are monthly averages from tax-office payment data, not unique people.
Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements
The Australian Government paid $3.1 billion to state and territory governments through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements between 1 June 2018 and 30 June 2022, and the arrangements were activated for 49 disaster events that occurred in 2021–22.
3.1 AUD billion, drfa payments to states and territories, 2018-06-01 to 2022-06-30. 49 events, disaster events that occurred in 2021–22 with drfa activations, 2021–22. Australian National Audit Office, Auditor-General Report No. 23 of 2022–23, Administration of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Commonwealth pre-commits by ministerial determination to reimburse a set share of state and territory relief and recovery spending in defined categories once an event is activated, so states can spend first and claim afterwards under an agreed assurance process.
Limits: Dollars paid measure the federal share of state recovery spending, which tracks how much damage the hazards did as much as how well recovery was run: a bad flood year raises the number. The audit is an independent assurance review of administration, not an evaluation of recovery outcomes, and it found the agencies did not monitor or report DRFA performance, so no figure on speed or quality of recovery exists to set beside the spending. The 49 events is the ANAO's own headline count of disasters that occurred in 2021–22 and activated the arrangements; it counts activations, not their size or how well each was handled. Delivery is by the states; the Commonwealth reimburses. The ANAO site sits behind a Cloudflare check that blocks scripted requests, and its headline counter renders as 0 without JavaScript; the numbers were read in a browser at the same URL, and 49 also appears in paragraph 2.16. DRFA replaced the earlier Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements in 2018, so the start year is that of the current determination, not of federal recovery cost sharing.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+0.9 over 10 years, from 26.7 in 2016 to 27.6 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 5.317% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 25.159% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 75.217score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.07index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
114,582 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 15 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Inland Rail, and its consolidation at Parkes
The Australian Government began building Inland Rail, a Melbourne to Brisbane freight railway, in 2018 through the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which passed delivery to its subsidiary Inland Rail Pty Ltd in May 2024; a verification report delivered to the infrastructure department in November 2025 reported the company's estimate at completion of A$45.6 billion (P90, Target scenario, estimate current as of December 2024) with completions finalised in May 2036, and the 2026-27 Budget then consolidated the project at Parkes and returned $4.4 billion in equity.
45.6 billion Australian dollars, estimate at completion of the full inland rail programme, target scenario (p90), 2024-12. 2,036 year (May 2036), month in which completions are finalised under the target scenario schedule, 2024-12. ACIL Allen for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, Verification and assurance of Inland Rail scope, design, delivery and cost, final report of 20 November 2025, tabled at Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Budget Estimates 2026-27, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Commonwealth committed to a 1,700 km freight line through a government-owned track company and started construction before the route ends, approvals and designs were settled; when successive reviews put the cost far above the budget, it moved delivery into a dedicated subsidiary, commissioned independent cost assurance and then cut the line back to the sections already under way.
Limits: Both numbers are forecasts, not outturn: they are Inland Rail Pty Ltd's own December 2024 estimate as reviewed by a consultancy (ACIL Allen) for the department, and the report itself says IRPL's core assumptions have not been met and the cost is likely to increase with further delay. The faster Stretch scenario is A$44.7 billion with completions by June 2035. Both figures are in Table 1.1 on PDF page 12; the 2018 start and the 2015 business case are on page 8. The truncation is not in this report: it comes from Budget Paper No. 2, 2026-27 (https://budget.gov.au/content/bp2/download/bp2_2026-27.pdf, PDF page 139, printed page 124), which says the government will 'consolidate the Inland Rail project at Parkes and preserve the remaining rail corridor and intermodal sites for future investment, with $4.4 billion in equity to be returned to the Budget'. The 2015 business case cost and the estimates in the 2023 Schott review are published on infrastructure.gov.au, which did not answer from the machine used for this record, so no original baseline is given here and the overrun against it is not stated. The erosion is to planned scope: Beveridge to Parkes is still being built and nothing in service was lost, and no section of the full line has opened to double-stacked through traffic.