Life expectancy in Australia hits new high: Report

Canberra: Life expectancy in Australia has hit a new high, with babies born in 2015 expected to live two years longer than those born in 2005, according to a report issued on Friday.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report showed that life expectancy had hit 84.5 years for females and 80.4 years for males, but demographics expert Peter McDonald of the University of Melbourne said that the statistics assume no improvements in healthcare and were therefore conservative estimates.

"They are not any individual's lifetime; they are just telling you the expectation of life you would get if life expectancy didn' t change... and for the last 200 years it has been going up," he said.

ABS Director of Demography Beidar Cho said the life expectancy for Australians in 2015 was comparable for other first-world nations.

"Babies born today have the highest estimated life expectancy ever recorded in Australia," Cho said in a statement.

"Male life expectancy at birth reached 80.4 years in 2015, increasing from 80.3 in 2014. Female life expectancy also increased to 84.5 years in 2015 from 84.4 in the previous year."

"For both men and women, Australia has a higher life expectancy than similar countries such as Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US."

Meanwhile in 2005, the life expectancy of Australians was at 83.3 years for women and 78.5 years for men.

"In 2013-2015, the male and female combined life expectancy at birth estimate for Australia was 82.4 years. This was 11.9 years higher than the world average of 70.5 years in 2010-2015," Cho added.