Section 1: Headline Results

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In 2023...

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Image How do we compare? Trust in Public Service Brand in New Zealand was 59% in 2023[6] Trust in public services across OECD countries was 50% in 2021[7]

General trust and satisfaction over time

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Results have remained stable over the past year. How do we measure what is a good progress for trust and satisfaction in public services?

Among other countries that study trust in public services specifically, there is a trend for trust in public services to be relatively stable and slow moving.

The stability is likely because:

1. People do not think about public services unless a major event creates a significant need to access services (such as COVID or the 2008 recession).
2. Public services need to perform better to maintain satisfaction as people’s expectations tend to grow over time.

See Section 2 ‘what drives trust and satisfaction’ for more details.

Trust is the proportion of people who answered “Strongly Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat agree” with the statement “I can trust Australian public services”
Satisfaction is the proportion of people who answered “Completely satisfied”, “Satisfied” or “Somewhat satisfied” when asked “Thinking about your overall experience with the above services, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you?”

Specific trust and satisfaction in services

Trust[8] and satisfaction[9] varies significantly between services

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A fair comparison? Trust and satisfaction are a product of more than service experience. See Section 2 ‘what drives trust and satisfaction?’ for more details.

Want more detail on services? Section 3 of this report provides further results for each service.

Who trusts?

1. Life Satisfaction 74% of people reporting satisfaction with life[10] trusted public services[11], compared with only 34% of people who report life dissatisfaction[12]. Image	2. Trust rust in people 76% of people who were generally trusting of others reported trust in public services compared with 38%  for those who are  distrusting of others. Image	3. Gender 65% of men reported trust in public services compared to 57% of women. Image
4. Age 65% of people aged 18-34 reported that they trusted public services, higher than people aged 35-64 (58%). 68% of people aged 65+ reported that they trusted public services. Image	5. Regional and Metro areas A higher number of people who live in Metro areas reported trust (63%) when compared to people who live in regional areas (55%). Image	6. Income 67% of those earning above the  median weekly wage (above $1249) trust public services compared to 59% of people earning less than the median. Image
7. Education levels 63% of those who graduated year 12  were trusting of public services while  only 55% of people who left  education before year 12  were trusting. Image	8. Language spoken at home 71% of people who primarily speak a language other English at home trust in Australian public services, compared to 61%  who speak English at home  as their primary language.  Image	9. Country people were born in 67% of people who were born in a country other than Australia had trust  in Australian public services  compared with 60% people who  were born in Australia.  Image

Co-occuring Factors
There is a common theme of disadvantage and vulnerability underpinning these factors that may be a more fundamental driver of trust. See section 2 for more details.

In what way were they satisfied?

The aspects of satisfaction with public services with the highest satisfaction[13] in 2023 were primarily related to the way people were treated by staff and information quality. The greatest area for improvement relates to service process, such as keeping people informed of progress and wait times.

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People were least satisfied with public service processes, although a higher proportion got what they needed at the end of the process.