Our two latest True Issues reports show how Australians prioritise their biggest concerns in the final months of 2025 and compares how people see the nation’s social cohesion today compared to mid-2024
The latest edition of our True Issues survey report is now available online, as published in the Australian Financial Review by political editor Phil Coorey and reporter Luke Kinsella here.
As summer arrives Australians still see household living costs, housing access and affordability and healthcare as their issue priorities for government action, and more Australians are looking for greater government focus on the environment and climate change and energy. Most of the unprompted energy mentions in this latest survey are around energy costs, with comparatively fewer direct mentions of renewable energy or energy reliability. Energy mentions are also notably up across all income groups, showing it is not just low income earners feeling energy cost frustrations. Meanwhile the environment and climate change is an increasing top of mind issue among young women (18-34 yrs) and older adults (55+).
Diving into some of the more detailed demographic specifics of living costs and housing – the two most salient issues for most Australians – reveals some important insights for policymakers. Those who picked housing supply and affordability as their standout number one issue (not just in the top 5) sits at 12% overall, but among renters those who cite it number one is much higher at 23%. The housing debate is a big one in Australia, but no one should be in doubt that it is just as much a perceived crisis of rental accommodation access and cost as it is about owning a home.
On cost of living 44% of women under 55 years of age pick it as their standout number one issue, compared to 35% of the population overall. This offers some indication that weekly groceries and monthly household expenses continue to drive affordability anger, and many women want to see more targeted action from government in this area of the economy.
This final True Issues for 2025 also reveals a sag in confidence about the direction of Australia’s national economy. It is important to note this measure improved substantially from February (-23) to September of this year (-15), following three RBA rate cuts. The third point of rate relief was in August immediately before our September survey. Since that time Australians have received unwelcome news that the unemployment rate was up and many mortgage holders remain anxious about the inflation challenge and what that means for cash rate decision making into 2026.
As well as the personal impacts like cost of living pressures, a close look at the submitted quotes on why people are concerned about the economy and finances sees multiple mentions of government debt, government spending and perceptions of our economic health impacting inflation. We hope subscribers saw our recent analytical note published in early November in an effort to illuminate ongoing public debate about Australia’s fiscal options in the times ahead. You can find that piece here if you missed it.
The latest wave of our quantitative research also took a careful look at social cohesion in our country in the wake of some pretty challenging images on newspaper frontpages and nightly news bulletins over recent months. A summary of what we found in comparing the situation today with what we measured in July 2024 can be found further below. But let’s start with our regular issues tracking…
True Issues – November 2025
Unprompted, a majority (54%) of adults continue to name cost of living in their top three most important issues or concerns and three-quarters (77%) select it in their top five from a prompted list – both similar to September results but lower than in February (prior to the RBA’s three 2025 cash rate cuts).
Housing supply and affordability remains ahead of hospitals and healthcare as the next most important issue to Australians (54% and 48% prompted responses, respectively). With the spring real estate market seeing continued high demand and costs to buy or rent property increasing, housing is more top of mind (37%) than in early 2025, and well ahead of hospitals and healthcare (23%).
The environment and climate change is more top of mind than two months ago as an issue needing government attention (20% unprompted mentions, up from 15% in September), and one in four adults in each age group select this in their top five prompted concerns.
Australians who select this as their number one issue mention the urgency of taking action to cut CO2 emissions and express concerns about the approval of new fossil fuel projects and the impacts of climate change (e.g. rising temperatures, extreme weather events) on the environment, key industries such as agriculture and tourism, and future generations.
Community concern about energy has also increased (10% unprompted mentions, up from 7%, and 24% prompted responses, up from 20%). Those who most want more government focus on energy talk about the need to address high energy costs for households and businesses and to maintain reliable supply amid the transition to more renewables.
However, overall, more than one in three Australians remain optimistic about the future and continue to view their personal situation as heading in the right direction (35%), greater than the one in five (20%) who believe they are heading in the wrong direction. Renters and low income households are most pessimistic about their future.
Performance of governments
Despite some slight improvements since September, Australian Government performance still rates below ‘average’ (i.e. an index score below 50) both overall and across most individual issues measured. However, its overall performance index score of 47 is slightly improved from 46 in September, following a similar increase from 45 in February.
Perceptions of government performance are improved on almost half of the issues measured, most notably on foreign affairs and trade (index score of 52, up four points). This follows widespread media coverage of recent key diplomatic events, including the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Trump in Washington and attendance at the ASEAN and APEC summits.
Smaller one point increases were recorded elsewhere, including on lower performing issues such as the NDIS (index score of 41), immigration and border security and hospitals and healthcare (index score of 42 for each), and the economy and finances and interest rates (index score of 43 for each).
Social cohesion
It has been said that public safety is the prerequisite of executing an affordability and economic reform agenda. With that in mind JWS Research decided in this latest wave to maintain a close eye to what is happening within the social fabric of our nation as real concerns about our economic health continue to simmer. Perceptions of division in Australia have strengthened over the past year amid a continuation of large street protests, online activism and political engagement around: the Israel-Palestine conflict; Indigenous rights, climate change and anti-racism on the left; immigration and multiculturalism, social and gender roles, and anti-government sentiment on the right.
In November 2025, around a third of adults (35%) view Australians as extremely divided or very divided on key political, economic and social issues. This compares with just one in four adults (27%) in July 2024. A further one in two adults (49%) see Australians as just somewhat divided and the proportion who see no social division here has declined (11%, down from 14% in 2024).
Community tolerance for more divisive viewpoints has also shifted. More adults now see extreme views as a serious threat to Australia compared with 2024 and this applies to both extreme right views (63%, up from 53%) and extreme left views (57%, up from 51%). At the same time, fewer Australians think that people should be free to express their views ‘whatever those views are’ (53%, down from 73%).
Australians who perceive extreme (right or left) views as a threat are twice as likely to think people should not be free to express whatever views they want to, compared to those who do not see extreme views as a threat or have no opinion on this (20% versus 8%, respectively).
Overall, and regardless of political affiliation, most Australians (75%) think the Government should take further action to address extreme views and intolerance in our community. People are concerned about tensions between different groups (72%) and believe that we should not let international disputes impact all of us living here (68%).
Many Australians have felt their freedom of movement negatively impacted by public protests, with almost half (45%) experiencing concern about their safety in areas where there are protestors.
Importantly, amid these shifting attitudes and concerns around social division, local media balance is seen to be declining. Almost half of Australians do not believe our media does a good job of presenting different sides of the debate on key issues and events (46%, up from 37% in 2024), double those who think it does do a good job (23%, down from 31%).
For the full report looking at the social cohesion of Australia today compared to the middle of last year click the button below.
True Issues is a research tool to assist Australian businesses to understand where their issues truly sit within the contemporary issues landscape. This poll was conducted as an online survey between 7 and 10 November 2025 among a representative national sample of 1,000 Australians aged 18+ years.
Here are the links again for our special edition Social Cohesion report and True Issues 39 reports. For further enquiries or to include your issue in the next wave, please get in touch.
