Trust in national government

Trust in institutions

Release date and time

15/09/2025 11:30am AEST

Released 15/09/2025

Metric

Proportion of the population that express confidence in the national government

Why this matters

Trust in government is linked to political participation, social cohesion and collaboration in tackling societal challenges.

Progress

The OECD reports that in 2024, 49% of people aged 15 years and over expressed confidence in the national government. This is slightly lower than 2006 (53%).

Data from the Mapping Social Cohesion Report shows that in 2024, 33% of adults think the Federal Government can be trusted to do the right thing by the Australian people all or most of the time, down from 44% in 2021.

The OECD Drivers of Public Trust survey shows that in 2023, 46% of Australians reported high or moderately high trust in the national government.

Proportion of people that express confidence in the national government (a)(b)
	People aged 15 years and over (%)
2006	53.0
2007	53.0
2008	62.5
2009 (b)
2010	62.5
2011	47.0
2012	47.0
2013	47.0
2014	46.3
2015	46.3
2016	46.3
2017	46.3
2018	46.3
2019	46.3
2020	49.0
2021	49.0
2022	49.0
2023	49.0
2024	49.0

Proportion of people that express confidence in the national government (a)(b)

["","People aged 15 years and over"]

[["2006","2007","2008","2009 (b)","2010","2011","2012","2013","2014","2015","2016","2017","2018","2019","2020","2021","2022","2023","2024"],[[53],[53],[62.5],[null],[62.5],[47],[47],[47],[46.33333333],[46.33333333],[46.33333333],[46.33333333],[46.33333333],[46.33333333],[49],[49],[49],[49],[49]]]

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Data is presented as 3-year pooled averages from 2008 to 2022, and 2-year pooled averages from 2006 to 2007 and 2023 to 2024. Further information can be found in the database’s definitions and metadata.
There is no data for 2009.

Data Source

OECD Future Wellbeing Data Explorer, accessed 02/09/25