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Australia's top central banker is due to make his final public appearance before passing the mantle to deputy governor, Michele Bullock.

Philip Lowe will offer some final remarks on his seven-year stint as governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia to the Anika Foundation on Thursday.

The esteemed economist began his career at the RBA in the 1980s and worked his way up to the top job, replacing Glenn Stevens as governor in 2016.

Dr Lowe has overseen the economy through the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic and its chaotic recovery, complicated by a war in Ukraine.

The combination of the conflict in Europe, troubled supply chains and massive pandemic-era stimulus triggered a surge in inflation, leaving the RBA board with no choice but to embark on the most aggressive interest rate hiking cycle since the early 1990s.

The governor has overseen 12 interest rate hikes since May last year, lifting the cash rate from a record low of 0.1 per cent to 4.1 per cent.

Insights into the decision to keep interest rates on hold at the September meeting - the third pause in a row - may also feature in Dr Lowe's outgoing address.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers thanked Dr Lowe for his service at the key economic institution.

"He leaves that important role with the government's respect, the government's gratitude, and he leaves with dignity," he said earlier in the week.

He welcomed Ms Bullock into the top job as an "an outstanding economist with a deep understanding of the RBA".

Ms Bullock, the first female governor, will step into the role on September 18.

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Australians are generally not as happy as they were before COVID-19, as pandemic-related troubles give way to cost of living and housing concerns.

A biennial report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare draws on wide-ranging data to analyse the pandemic's temporary and lasting affects on the way Australians live and work.

The in-depth study, entitled Australia's Welfare 2023, shows life satisfaction and psychological distress have improved but not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

A quarterly Australian National University survey put average life satisfaction at seven out of 10 in October 2019, before it fell to 6.5 in April 2020 and August 2021.

The metric had picked up to 6.8 by January this year, but dropped back to 6.6 in August.

That month, 30.3 per cent of Australians reported finding it difficult or very difficult to live on their income, up from 17.3 per cent during the first year of the pandemic in November 2020.

But the 322-page report noted price increases from inflation rates not seen in Australia since the 1990s had become a "key determinant" of life satisfaction by October 2022.

"Household income in Australia declined in real terms by about 3.1 per cent between April and October 2022, suggesting a decline in living standards,' read the report, published on Thursday.

"Life satisfaction in October 2022 was 10 per cent lower for people who thought price increases were a very big problem (6.4) compared to those who did not (7.1), and 14 per cent lower for those in the bottom income quintile (6.2) compared with the top income quintile (7.2)."

Despite wages falling in real terms, Australian renters on average paid an extra 2.5 per cent in the 2023 June quarter alone and 6.7 per cent annually, the largest yearly rise since 2009.

But the cost of living and housing crises had not translated to more people joining the welfare queue by March, with the proportion of Australians 16 and over on income support settling back to pre-pandemic levels (24 per cent).

While restrictions and vaccine mandates have all but been abandoned across the country, the report shows the human toll of COVID-19 continues to mount.

There have been 10,176 more deaths than expected in Australia from the start of the pandemic to March, with COVID-19 accounting for a high proportion of those as the nation's eighth leading cause of total disease burden in 2022.

The institute's deputy chief executive officer Matthew James said Australia had come a long way since the previous edition of the report in September 2021.

"At that time, many Australians were experiencing lockdowns, only 44.7 per cent of people over the age of 16 were fully vaccinated against COVID and most children aged 12-15 weren't yet eligible to receive COVID vaccines," he said.

"Life is much more 'normal' now for most Australians, however, some things are quite different to before the pandemic."

KEY STATISTICS FROM AUSTRALIA'S WELFARE 2023:

* More than $212 billion was spent on welfare in 2021/22

* COVID-19 accounted for 151,400 years of healthy life lost in 2022

* The proportion of Australians aged 18 and over working from home most days doubled from 13 per cent in March 2020 to about 26 to 31 per cent between September 2020 and February 2021

* 815,500 Australians lived in social housing in 2021/22

* The proportion of First Nations people living in overcrowded housing fell from 31 per cent to 19 per cent between 2001 and 2021

* Australia's prison population increased from 29,380 in mid-2012 to 40,591 by mid-2022

© AAP 2023

Freshwater crayfish, frogs with pockets, and native gum trees are among dozens of species added to Australia's long list of threatened native treasures.

The federal government announced 48 new or upgraded listings on the eve of Threatened Species Day, adding to the 1700 species and ecological communities known to be threatened and at risk of extinction.

The new listings include 16 species of native spiny crayfish that are found nowhere else in the world, and in many cases are confined to single river catchments in NSW and Queensland.

Seven of them went from being unlisted straight into the critically endangered category.

That's also true for NSW's Wollumbin hip-pocket frog, a species that sees protective dads carry their tadpoles around in pouches on their legs.

Many of the species were affected by the Black Summer bushfires.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says the listings will afford the imperilled plants and animals greater protection under existing federal laws, which are currently being rewritten after a review found they were ineffective, outdated and incapable of producing good environmental outcomes.

The minister, who has promised to prevent any new extinctions, has also released recovery plans for other critically endangered species, including the maugean skate.

The skate is an ancient fish species that's now found only in Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour and experts have recently warned it could be one extreme weather event away from vanishing forever.

She's promised an initial $2.1 million in federal funds to help the species.

Some of the cash will be spent on a captive breeding program to create an insurance population if it can't be saved in its wild home, which is impacted by salmon farming and the generation of hydro electricity.

A new conservation advice is now in place for the species, with fewer than 1000 thought to be left.

It provides new analysis of the current threats, such as poor water quality, and outlines what needs to be done to bring the fish back from the brink.

"We know the key threats remain poor water quality in Macquarie Harbour from aquaculture and hydro operations," Ms Plibersek says.

"Our government is committed to doing what we can to assist, and we urge the salmon industry and Tasmanian government to take the action needed to clean up Macquarie Harbour so the maugean skate can survive for another 100 million years."

© AAP 2023