While "best friend" is subjective, New Zealand is often considered Australia's closest, sharing deep cultural, economic, and historical ties, consistently ranked as a top friend in public opinion polls, despite strong alliances with the US (ANZUS) and growing ties with Japan, UK, and China (major trade partner).
It maintains significant ties with ASEAN and has become steadfastly allied with New Zealand, through long-standing ties dating back to the 1800s. The country also has a longstanding alliance with the United States of America.
While the United States remains Australia's principal strategic ally, it is far from the only one. Australia has, or has had, various alliance or defence-related agreements with inter alia Singapore, Britain, New Zealand, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, Sweden, Germany, Papua New Guinea, India, the Netherlands, and Japan.
Australia's 10 most popular travel destinations from 2021-25
Friendliest Countries 2025
Canada and the United States have a long, complex, and intertwined relationship; they are close allies, co-operating regularly on military campaigns and humanitarian efforts.
However, the "First World" is generally thought of as the capitalist, industrial, wealthy, and developed countries. This definition includes the countries of North America and Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.
Australia's biggest rival depends on the sport, but internationally, England (The Ashes in cricket) and New Zealand (Bledisloe Cup in rugby) are historic rivals, while India has emerged as a fierce modern cricket rival, and domestically, Queensland vs. New South Wales (State of Origin) is arguably the most intense rivalry. The rivalry with England in cricket is deeply cultural and historic, fueled by colonial roots, while the India rivalry is known for sheer intensity in cricket.
No, Australia is not 90% white; while a large majority identify with European ancestry (around 76-80% in recent years), a significant and growing portion identifies as Asian, African, Middle Eastern, or Indigenous, making it a highly multicultural nation with diverse ethnic backgrounds, not overwhelmingly white. Recent census data shows European ancestry (English, Irish, etc.) makes up a large chunk, but Asian ancestries are also substantial, with over 17% Asian population and around 3.8% identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, per the 2021 census data from Wikipedia.
Bilateral relations
The Australia-China bilateral relationship is based on strong economic and trade complementarities and longstanding community and cultural links.
The Australia–Japan partnership is our closest and most mature in Asia, and is fundamentally important to both countries' strategic and economic interests. The relationship is underpinned by a shared commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as common approaches to international security.
Australia only engages bilaterally with Russia when it is critical to delivering on our national interests, such as ensuring the safety of Australian citizens, as well as the security and ongoing operations of our diplomatic presence in Russia.
The United States. Since World War II, Japan's most important tie has been with the United States. Japan's mutual defense treaty with the United States is central to its security. The United States is committed to defend Japan and maintains military bases in Japan partially for that purpose.
The five closest countries to Australia, by proximity, are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, East Timor (Timor-Leste), Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, with Papua New Guinea being Australia's most immediate neighbor across the Torres Strait, followed by Indonesia and East Timor to the north and northwest.
In 1932, Australia went to war against 20,000 emus. And lost. Learn more about how this surreal military campaign started, and how the emus won just by being emus at the link in bio.
Threats to Australia's vital interests
Observation. When thinking about Australia's best friend in the world, the majority of Australians (57%) agree that it is New Zealand — a view that has been held firmly since 2017, but that represents an increase of 25 points since the question was first posed in 2014.
Private debt is currently around 130% of GDP as contrasted with government (public) debt which is quite low at 34% of GDP. So yes the Australian public has a lot of debt. Having said that Australia is still a very rich country with median wealth per capita roughly $270k USD or $400k AUD.
List of Second World Countries
Summary. On January 1, 1901, six colonies were joined together to create the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing Dominion in the British Empire. While the new nation was sovereign when it came to its domestic affairs, the United Kingdom maintained control over its relations with the wider world.
🇨🇦 Canada ranked #1 most loved country in the world 🌍✨ Out of 48,000+ global respondents, Canada topped the international reputation list with a score of 78.1.
Iceland. Ranked number one since 2008, Iceland remains the world's most peaceful nation, leading across all three domains: safety and security, ongoing conflict and militarisation. It even recorded a 2% improvement this year, widening the gap from the second-place country on the list.
According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row. It's followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands in the annual survey released on Thursday, March 20, 2025, that ranks countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.