We humans understand the world best in comparison.

A single number means little unless we can anchor it to something familiar. That’s why in my columns you always see me benchmark data across time, place, people, and purpose.

Without these anchors, stats are just stray numbers drifting in space. In my writing and on stage as a public speaker I learned that Australians love knowing how we compare to other countries.

When international benchmarking enters the chat, the usual suspects are the US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand.

We speak the same language (more or less), share colonial histories, and have a cultural closeness that makes comparisons feel natural. But if we only ever look at our cousins, we miss bigger, bolder lessons.

Australia often looks to the US as both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

As the global economic and cultural superpower, the US sets most of the trends that shape Australian media, tech, and policy debates.

From healthcare models to university fees to homeownership rates, comparisons with the US help Australians understand where we align with or diverge from a more individualistic, market-driven society.

The UK is Australia’s historical reference point – our legal system, parliamentary democracy and even many place names trace back to Britain.

Social norms, class structures, and policy legacies often mirror British roots. When Australians debate housing affordability, education models, or public broadcasting, it’s natural to look at how the “mother country” is managing similar challenges.

Canada is Australia’s policy twin in many ways. We’re both vast, resource-rich, sparsely populated countries with multicultural cities and strong historical ties to the British Crown.

Canada gives us a glimpse of how similar nations tackle immigration, healthcare, and climate policy – often in ways that feel more European in tone. Comparing ourselves to Canada feels like comparing two parallel experiments in liberal democracy (albeit one experiment has much better beaches).

New Zealand is Australia’s sibling in both geography and culture. We share close economic ties, a trans-Tasman labour market, and similar education and health systems.

When one country tweaks a policy, the other watches closely. Whether it’s housing reform, Indigenous reconciliation, or pandemic management, the Kiwi benchmark is impossible to ignore.

Whenever I write a column, it’s these four benchmark nations that I am immediately drawn to – for good reason I would say.

After a while, using the same four benchmarks becomes a bit boring. I want a to spice up my life. I want new benchmarks! Let’s widen the lens. Let’s find some new countries we should compare Australia to more often.

It might seem like an odd match at first, but Brazil and Australia are more alike than you’d think.

Both are vast countries with largely uninhabitable interiors (rainforest in Brazil’s case, Outback desert in ours). We’re both resource powerhouses, relying heavily on agricultural and mining exports. We worship sport (Brazil has football; we have… everything), and we’re beach-obsessed coastal dwellers with sunny climates and laid-back vibes.

When looking at emerging markets, Brazil is a useful mirror. It can be a useful cautionary tale when telling stories about Australia’s declining middle class, the lack of social cohesion, and worsening inequality.

We can also look up to Brazil as the nation manages a more complex economy than Australia.

Brazil diversified its industrial base, producing and exporting more complex goods like automobiles, aircraft (Embraer), machinery, and pharmaceuticals.

Here is a simple lesson for Australia: Don’t just dig and ship. Build and export too. Complexity creates resilience. For Australia to increase its industrial output at least a little bit, energy costs would of course need to fall dramatically.

In certain Australian policy circles, Sweden is omnipresent. We often invoke it when discussing welfare models, parental leave, or housing cooperatives. But unlike Australia, Sweden is compact, cold and cohesive in ways we’re not.

Comparing ourselves to Sweden reveals our deeper policy choices: we tax less, spend less on social services, and build fewer apartments.

Sweden however is a constant reminder that different choices are possible. The mere existence of Sweden (even if we created some sort of fantasy version of Sweden in our heads) is useful to writers like me as we can make readers see that a radically different approach is possible.

Granted, in recent years it became less popular to draw on Israel as a comparison. Extremely unique in its history and geopolitical role, there truly is no country similar to Israel.

The nation remains a great case study for what can happen when you heavily invest in innovation, tech, and research and development.

For all our talk of “value-added exports” and moving beyond dig-and-ship economics, Israel shows what it takes – a long-term investment in education, risk-taking startups and a healthy dose of national ambition.

Benchmarking against Israel challenges Australia to think bigger and reminds us that footloose industries really can be setup anywhere in the world.

Australia has great lifestyle, wonderful beaches, and a great international reputation to attract tech workers and emerging businesses from the US and other high-tech centres. If we (rather miraculously) were to offer affordable housing and less stringent regulatory frameworks for startups, I truly believe a sizeable tech sector could be established in Australia.

The little city-state that could. Singapore gets name-dropped in every conversation about smart infrastructure, public housing, intergenerational living and urban planning.

In many ways it’s not a fair comparison as Singapore is tiny, tightly controlled and operates under a niche political setup. However, comparing ourselves to Singapore exposes our planning inefficiencies.

Where we sprawl, they stack. Where we debate endlessly, they execute. Where we think short-term, they think long-term. Singapore is a benchmark in doing things at scale and speed.

Sometimes a country is a very useful benchmark for no other reason than the writer having detailed local knowledge.

I was born, raised and educated in Germany. My birth nation is a valuable benchmark for Australia when it comes to advanced manufacturing and vocational education. Any discussion about advancing Australia’s manufacturing sector is shot down by pointing to our high wages.

Germany shows what a high-wage country can achieve by investing in engineering, apprenticeships and value-added production. Germany proves that it’s at least possible to maintain global competitiveness without racing to the bottom on wages.

For Australia, benchmarking against Germany highlights that our “dig and ship” approach could be complemented by an emerging “design and build” approach.

Next time you see a statistic about Australia, ask yourself: Compared to when? Compared to where? Compared to whom? That’s how we turn numbers into narratives, and that’s how we make sense of the world. Benchmarked data turns into a story. Without a benchmark, it remains but a fact without context.

Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn.