The latest welfare report card issued by the government has painted a picture of a divided Australia.
On the one hand, Australians are living longer, working later into life and are better educated.
Our aging population and immigration are also highlighted as key factors in Australia's changing demographics.
On the other hand, some groups are still facing extreme social and economic hardship, with Indigenous Australians still lagging behind in many of the key welfare indicators.
Darren Mara has the details.
The Australia's Welfare 2013 report spells out a number of positive statistics.
Life expectancy has continued its upward creep, to just below 80 years for men, and above 84 for women.
We are increasingly well educated - nearly three-quarters of school leavers completed Year 12 last year and almost two-thirds of people aged 15-64 have a non-school qualification.
That's up more than 10 per cent on a decade ago.
The report also shows the number of Australians born overseas is growing - that figure is now up to 27 per cent.
David Kalisch is the director of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which compiled the report.
He says this is proof Australia's immigration intake is slowly changing the face of the nation.
"I suppose what it does demonstrate is that the feature of our immigration programs that have been operating at relatively high levels for a number of years are impacting on the composition of our population and that's certainly showing through (in) the numbers, that our net migration program have a large feature of people coming from non-English-speaking countries and that's showing up in the broad numbers we're seeing from the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics)."
The welfare report also looks at the quality of life for Indigenous Australians, and it continues to paint a troubled picture.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people still experience greater disadvantage, and continue to have shorter lives than other Australians.
Higher birth rates and earlier deaths mean that on average, Australia's Indigenous people are much younger than the Australian population overall.
The death rate for Indigenous infants has fallen (by 46 per cent to 6.6 per 1,000 births) but the death rate for indigenous adults is still four to five times higher than for non-indigenous people.
David Kalisch says however the report does highlight some improvements in Indigenous education and housing.
"There are certainly significant and notable improvements in education participation and education qualifications for indigenous people, increases in employment rates for Indigenous people and reductions in overcrowding and homelessness amongst Indigenous people."
The welfare report says around 230,000 people used specialist homelessness services in 2011-12.
It says more women used these services than men, on account of domestic and family violence.
The acting chief executive of Homelessness Australia, Lynne Evans, says homelessness rates seem to have stabilised in recent years.
But she points to a high rate of unreported homelessness in Indigenous communities as being of particular concern.
"Especially in areas like the Long Grass areas in the Northern Territory and in Western Australia. There's certainly a lot of Indigenous homelessness in those areas. We believe that they are probably under-represented, or they're in crowded dwellings."
The welfare report also sheds light on a growing number of reported cases of child abuse and neglect.
That figure was up 18 per cent between 2007 and 2012.
There's also
a 27 per cent rise in the number of children in out-of-home care.
Indigenous children continue to be over-represented in the child protection system - the rate almost eight times that for non-Indigenous children.
The chief executive of the Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies, Andrew McCallum, says more attention should be placed on preventative measures.
"So I think we really need to do better around that early identification. It's one thing to identify families at risk, it's another thing to get them to access services and to actually provide services for them that changes that trajectory. The end result is, if they can be in a long-term, stable relationship, be that with their family or in an adoption or permanent care, that is far better for the kids than to be in temporary arrangements in foster care where we know that some kids can have a multiple number of placements, which does nothing for their long-term stability."
The report also highlights dementia as an ongoing health problem among older Australians, with numbers expected to triple to 900,000 by 2050.
Older Australians are now also poorer, but are more likely to own their own homes.
There's also been an increase in the number of older Australians unable to care for themselves at home.
Professor John Kelly chairs the peak national body Aged and Community Services Australia.
Professor Kelly says an increasing number of older Australians will come from non-English speaking backgrounds, and this carries particular challenges, especially for those with dementia.
"As people begin to show further signs of dementia they often revert to their language of origin and this creates all sorts of issues for people of CALD* backgrounds, particularly as their family is obviously smaller - they've either passed on themselves or they just aren't around to provide that support for them."
Professor Kelly says this is why it's important government agencies tailor a portion of aged care services to people from a non-English-speaking background.
"They have a report out that was released earlier this year that has a series of strategies that focus not only on culturally and linguistically diverse communities but also on some of the sexual and gender issues that are also important for the older Australian set as well. So I think there have been some steps made and it's going to be a challenge for us to start to address them rather than have them sit in a report."
(*A bureaucratic term that stands for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse)
