Trust – the Defence Against Populism

By Evan Schwarten

The most important thing with the upcoming election isn’t actually who wins it. Nor is it specific outcomes that may flow from that – for energy policy, for service delivery, for the economy and beyond. As important as all of those things are, the most important thing, I would argue, is that Australians continue to see that they can have faith in our democratic processes and institutions.

Depending on your worldview, it’s easy to feel a little anxious about the outlook for global democracies given the destruction of political norms we are witnessing in real time in the US.

Introducing TrustWatch

The good news is that Australians are actually far more sanguine about our own state of affairs than the Americans. 

At DemosAU, we’ve launched a new data series called TrustWatch, tracking trust in our national institutions (among other things), and faith in our democracy. The headline is 67% of us – from a weighted representative sample of 1238 – believe Australian democracy is something to be proud of, compared to only 8% who disagree.

Compare that to the US, where a Pew poll last year found only 19% of Americans believe US democracy is a good example for other countries to follow. Similarly, a Gallup poll found only 28% of Americans are satisfied with US democracy, down from 60%  in 1990.

Sounds like we’ve got something worth not only preserving, but guarding with extreme jealousy. A cautionary tale has been laid out for us across the Pacific.

And there is reason for us to be alert. When we asked Australians whether they generally trusted the institutions in our country, 55% answered yes, while 21% answered no. The latter number is high enough to be of concern – to put it another way, one in five Australians, on balance, distrust our national institutions. 

Who are these people? According to TrustWatch, they actually relatively evenly distributed across most demographics. The closest thing to a defining feature is they are most likely to be found among One Nation voters – 42% of that cohort say they do not have faith in our institutions, compared to 11% for Labor voters, 16% for Greens voters and 24% for L/NP voters.

When it comes to individual institutions, Australians are most inclined to trust the Bureau of Meteorology (62% trust, 9% don’t trust), and the CSIRO (54% to 7%), so there remains a healthy respect for science (old jokes about the reliability of weather forecasts aside). Encouragingly, there is almost strong trust in the Australian Electoral Commission (53% trust vs 11% distrust). 

At the other end of the spectrum, only 28% of Australians trust our criminal justice system/s, compared to 38% who distrust, along with the Australian Energy Market Operator, which is trusted by 22% and distrusted by 30% – perhaps a reflection of consumer anger over recent rises in electricity prices. Trust in our parliament also isn’t great – 29% trust the Senate, compared to 24% who distrust, with the House of Representatives faring only slightly better at 30% to 22%. 

For all that, it’s clear we remain in a much better position than the US and other democracies around the world.

The question for our leaders, and our society is, can we keep it that way?

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