In recent times, however, Anglicanism in Australia has mirrored the steep decline in church membership and attendance experienced in many first-world nations.

Richard Johnson, a chaplain, was charged by the governor, Arthur Phillip, with improving "public morality" in the colony, but he was also heavily involved in health and education.

[6] Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland, so the authorities were suspicious of Roman Catholicism for the first three decades of settlement and Roman Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Anglicans.

Drafted by the reformist attorney-general John Plunkett, the act established legal equality for Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists.

Over the following 80 years the number of dioceses increased to 25.Sectarianism in Australia tended to reflect the political inheritance of Britain and Ireland.

The changes represented a heightened emphasis on the sacraments and were introduced by younger clergy trained in England and inspired by the Oxford and Anglo-Catholic movements.

The opposition of the strong conservative evangelical forces within the Sydney diocese limited the liberals during the 1930s, but their ideas contributed to the formation of the influential post-World War II Christian Social Order Movement.

After World War II, the ethnic and cultural mix of Australia diversified and Anglicanism gave way to Roman Catholicism as the largest denomination.

[10] Senior clergy such as Peter Jensen, former Archbishop of Sydney, have a high profile in discussions on a diverse range of social issues in contemporary national debates.

[20] In recent times the church has encouraged its leaders to talk on such issues as indigenous rights; international security; peace and justice; and poverty and equity.

[21] The current primate is Geoffrey Smith, Archbishop of Adelaide, who commenced in the role on 7 April 2020[1] after Philip Freier stepped down on 31 March 2020.

[25] This diocese is backed by the current Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and the Bishop of Tasmania, Richard Condie.

[26][27] In September 2022, the Diocese of Sydney voted to declare the church to be in a state of "deep breach of fellowship" as a result of the division.

[39] The Australian church consists of twenty-three dioceses arranged into five provinces (except for Tasmania) with the metropolitical sees in the states' capital cities.

[43] Anglicans have played a prominent role in welfare and education since Colonial times, when First Fleet chaplain Richard Johnson was credited by one convict as "the physician both of soul and body" during the famine of 1790 and was charged with general supervision of schools.

Largely designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket in the Perpendicular Gothic style reminiscent of English cathedrals.

Blacket also designed St Saviour's Cathedral in Goulburn, based on the Decorated Gothic style of a large English parish church and built between 1874 and 1884.

[48] Tasmania is home to a number of significant colonial Anglican buildings including those located at Australia's best preserved convict era settlement, Port Arthur.

[50] The oldest building in the city of Canberra is the picturesque St John the Baptist Church in Reid, consecrated in 1845.

This church long predates the city of Canberra and is not so much representative of urban design as it is of the Bush chapels which dot the Australian landscape and stretch even into the far Outback.

[57] In a statement representing a conservative and complementarian view, Bishop Gary Nelson said that Archbishop Goldsworthy "would not be recognised in her new role" as the metropolitan for the province.

[61] In 2018, the then-Primate of Australia and Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, released an ad clerum reiterating the current position that clergy cannot perform a same-sex marriage.

[62] In 2020, the church's highest court, the Appellate Tribunal, ruled that a diocese may authorise the blessing of persons in same-sex unions.

[67][68] A spokesman for Phillip Aspinall, the Archbishop of Brisbane, stated that "In effect it is an undertaking not to ordain, license, authorise or appoint persons whom the bishop knows to be in a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

In 2017, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall asked for "prayerful support" for the Revd Josephine Inkpin who had transitioned and come out as a transgender woman.

[101] The State Library of Queensland interviewed Inkpin and her wife about the intersection of gender, faith, religion and identity for their "Dangerous Women" podcast.

[102] Controversy over LGBT issues caused a split from the church in 2022: a former Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, alongside two congregations, left the Anglican Church of Australia to form the newly-formed Diocese of the Southern Cross which is affiliated to the conservative Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON).

Archbishop Peter Jensen attended the first Global Anglican Future Conference, in June 2008, in Jerusalem, and was the chairman of GAFCON.

It also expressed "support for those Anglicans who have left or will need to leave (...) because of its redefinition of marriage and those who struggle and remain", and presented their prayers for the return of SEC "to the doctrine of Christ in this matter" and the restoration of the impaired communion.

[citation needed] The Anglican Church of Australia was represented at GAFCON III, held in Jerusalem on 17–22 June 2018, by a 218 members delegation, which included Archbishop Glenn Davies of Sydney and bishops Richard Condie of Tasmania, Gary Nelson of North West Australia and Ian Palmer of Bathurst.