Disadvantaged students falling further behind, more victims of floods and fires, and fewer volunteers - Australia has taken backward steps on several markers of sustainable development.
Enshrining a voice for future generations in a permanent commissioner role has been pitched by the Monash Sustainable Development Institute as a way to help prevent further backslides.
Presenting a "mixed" report card on the nation's progress towards 80 economic, social and environmental targets, the institute's chair, Professor John Thwaites, said future generations were not well represented in political discourse.
"In one practical way, in planning decisions in cities where as soon as you say you're going to do something, you've got everyone with an interest telling you 'you shouldn't do that'," he said during a a panel discussion at an event in Canberra on Thursday.
"But what about the people who are going to benefit in the future?"
Federal independent MP Sophie Scamps made a formal bid for a commissioner for future generations to federal parliament on Monday via a private member's bill, seconded by Liberal MP Bridget Archer.
The bill drew heavily from Welsh laws in place for a decade that were designed to protect people not-yet-born.
But Thursday's modelling of Australia's progress towards the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals was not all doom and gloom.
The share of renewable electricity had almost quadrupled to 35 per cent since 2010 and rates of unemployment were much lower than in the past.
But progress had stalled or slid backwards on more than half the 80 indicators assessed, with the nation not completely on track to meet any of the 17 UN goals.
Australia was trailing other OECD nations on a number of metrics, including food insecurity, with 13 per cent of Australians lacking access to enough food compared to only 8.5 per cent in Europe and North America.
Broadening the Intergenerational Report to include environmental and social sustainability targets was another recommendation by the report's authors.
"It's led by the Productivity Commission, which very much focused on economic indicators, the classic economic indicators," MSDI senior research fellow Cameron Allen told AAP.
The Intergenerational Report is produced every five years.
Dr Allen said the nation's GDP could be $300 billion lower by 2050 without more investment in medium-term priority areas, such as education, disaster resilience, and sustainable food, energy and urban systems.
"Our modelling shows that with increased ambition Australia can halve poverty and reduce income inequality by a third, boost health, education and productivity, improve biodiversity, and deliver net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050," he said.
