iPhone Contact number recognition

Why has the iPhone stopped recognising phone numbers? If an existing Contact (in my phone Contacts) doesn’t match the incoming dialed number or an SMS (I think?) because it’s missing the (Australian) +61 prefix, it states the number is new. Sometimes, I don’t why it does and doesn’t, it says it maybe an existing contact and offers to ‘Update’. If you choose to update, it creates 2 versions of the same number.

The phone used to recognise either!!

Do I need to go through my contact database and add the correct prefixes? Is there an auto fix for this dumb update?