The long-term trend of declining trust in government, which mirrors a broader political polarisation and decay of trust in institutions more generally, is troubling for policymakers and leaders across the political spectrum.
The Purpose of Government Pulse sheds new light on Australian attitudes to government, democracy and public capability, but it is not being released in a vacuum.
Viewing the findings against a global and temporal background can expand and enrich the insights and direction we draw from it.
There is a body of global evidence that indicates that the accelerating changes of the COVID lockdown era have impacted widely held views of government, democracy and service delivery.
The Economist Democracy Index, which has benchmarked nations based on objective characteristics rather than reported attitudes, ranks Australia as one the “full democracies” in which around eight per cent of the world’s population lives, ranking third of five in Asia – behind Taiwan and New Zealand, ahead of Japan and South Korea.
The 2022 Index reported a recovery of democratic norms in full democracies following the lifting of COVID-19 response measures in Western Europe, but has said that “overall the story is one of stagnation” which shows that democracy currently is neither continuing the decline it experienced in the first part of the 21st Century, nor mounting a resurgence.
In 2018, the Democracy 202531 project benchmarked Australian satisfaction with democracy against OECD countries, finding Australia was 11th in the OECD, third in the Asia-Pacific (after New Zealand and Japan) and second among anglophone nations, with Canada placing 12th overall.
Locally, there were signs prior to the pandemic that democracy was not delivering what people wanted. Research released by the University of Canberra and the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis in 2018 found that satisfaction with democracy had more than halved from a 2007 high of nearly 85 percent to an historic low of 41 percent, with the largest drops recorded among those on the lowest incomes.
Trends in Australian Political Opinion drawn from Australian Election Surveys from 1987 to 2022 shows that at the 2022 election, 70% of people were satisfied with democracy. This was up from a low across the previous two elections, but not as high as the peak at the 2007 election.
This same report also shows that two-thirds of people think who you vote for can make a big difference. The 2022 election survey also shows high levels of support for big reforms around a national anti-corruption commission and donations to political parties, showing that Australians are more interested in reforming democracy than discarding it.
The results from the Mapping Social Cohesion report (2023) paints a similar picture. The percentage of people who think our system of government works fine as is or needs only minor change is 59% in 2023, down from a Covid high of 71% in Nov 2020. It’s noteworthy though, that a sizable minority of around 40% of people think it’s not working fine, and need wholesale changes.
"...while democratic institutions in the 21st century may be fragile, our faith in their potential and capacity is generationally resilient. "
As millennials form a larger bloc of voters, it’s clear that the orthodoxies that dominated the second half of the 20th century are struggling to satisfy them. They do not experience much benefit from public administration philosophies encouraging the marketisation of services or from political support for the treatment of residential real estate as a means to speculative wealth-building rather than a source of shelter and security.
Australians today are not bound by party loyalty. In 1970 more than two in three voted for the same party consistently. Today that number is one in three, and the 2022 Federal Election saw the lowest combined first preference for major parties since federation.
In 2022 perceptions that politicians know what ordinary people think sat at 14%, according to the Australian Election Survey, and perceptions that government is run for everyone were even lower at 12%.
Concurrently, the Purpose of Government Pulse shows that community consensus around the importance of public service delivery capability has swelled, and the view that the wellbeing of the population should guide government decisions, above other concerns, is held by the majority of people.
The Pulse results also suggest that younger people have more faith in leaders and governments than other cohorts – a sign that while democratic institutions in the 21st century may be fragile, our faith in their potential and capacity is generationally resilient.
We hope that these findings provide guidance and insight for policymakers, researchers, experts and advocates as Australia navigates the challenges and pursues the opportunities the future holds.
