By ABC's Jonathan Green

Posted Thursday 21 August 2014

Photo: What's the reality behind Tony Abbott's Team Australia? (AAP: Dan Peled)

The Prime Minister's concept of Team Australia seems so simple: the Australian way, you're for it or you're against it. The Australian reality though? Well that's a more complex thing altogether. Jonathan Green does the adding up.

In 2012, Australia's nominal GDP was $1501 billion.

On August 20, 2014 at 01:19:51 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia was projected to be: 23,570,738.

For all Australians, GDP per capita in 2012 was $63,680.

At the time of the 2011 Census, the median age for Australians was 37.

About 83 per cent of people think they're in the middle four deciles of the income distribution.

About 40 per cent of Australians are, in fact, the middle.

Among full-time workers, the median wage was $57,400 in August 2011.

Median income in North Sydney ($2111) was more than twice as high as the median income on the NSW Central Coast ($1003).

A single person living alone, who took home $43,000 in 2012 after income tax, had a material standard of living higher than 50 per cent of the population, and lower than 50 per cent of the population.

In 2011-12 about 2.6 million (11.8 per cent) Australians lived under the poverty line.

About 11.5 per cent of all Australian children under 25 years and 11.8 per cent of children under 15 were living in poverty.

Between 2000-01 and 2011-12 the poverty line (equalised disposable income) increased from $209 per week to $368 per week.

53 per cent of people in poverty belong to families without anyone in the labour force.

A family with at least one university level qualification is less than half as likely to experience poverty as the rest of the population.

A family with a post-graduate qualification has a child poverty rate of only 3.3 per cent. A family with a trade qualification has a poverty rate of 11.7 per cent.

Half of families with an education level lower than year 10 experience poverty.

On any given night, 1 in 200 Australians are homeless.

There are 3624 people in Australian immigration detention facilities, and 3007 people in community detention in Australia.

168 people have been in detention for more than two years.

In the 2011 Census, there were 5.3 million migrants in Australia, so one in four (26 per cent) Australian residents was born overseas.

The oldest median ages were for people born in Italy (68 years), Germany (62 years), and the United Kingdom (54 years).

Affiliation to Christianity among all Australians is in decline, from 96 per cent in 1911 to 61 per cent in 2011.

There has been an increase for those identifying with Pentecostal Christian groups from 1.0 per cent of the population in 2001 to 1.1 per cent in 2011.

Between 2001 and 2011, the number of people reporting a non-Christian faith increased considerably, from about 0.9 million to 1.5 million, accounting for 7.2 per cent of the total population in 2011.

"No religion" is on the increase, from 15 per cent in 2001 to 22 per cent in 2011.

28 per cent of people aged 15-34 reported they had no religious affiliation.

In 2011, 81 per cent of Australians aged five years and over spoke only English at home.

2 per cent of Australians spoke no English.

67 per cent of recent arrivals spoke a language other than English at home.

There are 281,578 Muslim Australians.

36 per cent of all Muslims in Australia were born here.

Almost 50 per cent of Australian Muslims are aged 24 and under.

Half of all Tasmanians aged 15 to 74 are functionally illiterate.

About 620,000 Australians aged 15 to 74 have literacy skills at below level one on a five point literacy scale.

Just under half a million Australian women reported that they had experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault in the past 12 months.

26.2 per cent of adults living in households below the 50 per cent poverty line are from a non-English speaking country.

Total direct Indigenous expenditure by government is $25.4 billion, 5.6 per cent of total direct government expenditure.

At June 30, 2013 there were 30,775 prisoners (sentenced and un-sentenced) in Australian prisons.

8430 prisoners identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, 27 per cent of the total prisoner population.

Almost half of Aboriginal men and more than a third of women die before they turn 45.

Three million Australians have mental and behavioural conditions.

60.3 per cent of men, and 66.6 per cent of women aged 18 years and over have a waist circumference that put them at an increased risk of developing chronic disease.

More than 3.1 million Australians over 18 have high blood pressure.

In the 12 months to June 2010, Australian households spent an average of $1236 each week on goods and services, an increase of 38 per cent since 2003-04.

In the 2013 election, 5,841,399 Australians voted for the Coalition parties.

709,055 voted for the Palmer United Party.

There were 15,932,799 eligible voters in the 2013 election, and 12,915,222 formal votes.

24 per cent of Australians think that in some circumstances a non-democratic government can be preferable.

Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Team Australia: the reality of the figures - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)