BACKGROUND COLOUR

Confidence in Government healthier after pandemic response

Insights
.
ANU Poll
.
10 Jul 2021
Health + Pandemic + Social Cohesion
Based on the work of
Nicholas BiddleBen EdwardsMatthew GrayKate Sollis

The pandemic may have been the second bad event to affect Australian in 2020, attitudes of respondents towards their Governments were much more optimistic than at the height of the bushfires. Australians were also happier with the direction of the country, and happier with each other with measures of social cohesion rising from February to April.

57 %

Confidence in the Federal Government more than doubled from 27% recorded in January at the height of the bushfires to 57% in April.

67 %

State and Territory Governments also got a surge in confidence from January to April, up from 40% to 67%.

76 %

Australians appear to be more satisfied with the direction of the country despite the pandemic with a substantial increase from January (60%) to April (76%).

6.08

Respondents also felt better about their fellow Australians with measures of altruism (6.08 out of 10), fairness (6.04/10) and trust (5.84/10) increasing.

Per cent of Australians Confident or Very Confident in Key Institutions
How much confidence do you have in the following organisations? 1. A great deal of confidence 2. Quite a lot of confidence 3. Not very much confidence 4. None at all
Sources & Methodology
Variable description Those who responded 'A great deal' or 'Quite a lot', Grouped by Sector
Variable time span 2020 (January and April)
Published by ANU Poll
Publisher Link https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/hardship-distress-and-resilience-initial-impacts-covid-19-australia-1
Data Source doi:10.26193/HLMZNW
© Copyright 2021, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University.
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Background

ANU Poll is a quarterly survey of Australian public opinion. The topic of each survey is an issue of national importance. ANUpoll differs from other opinion polls by placing public opinion in a broad policy context, and by benchmarking Australia against international opinion. lt is also able to follow trends in opinions over many decades.

ANUpoll is collected by the Social Research Centre's panel, Life in AustraliaTM. The Social Research Centre collected data online and through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) in order to ensure representation from the offline Australian population.

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Researchers

Professor Nicholas Biddle is Associate Director of the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and Director of the newly created Policy Experiments Lab (http://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/pelab). He has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons.) from the University of Sydney and a Master of Education from Monash University. He also has a PhD in Public Policy from the ANU where he wrote his thesis on the benefits of and participation in education of Indigenous Australians. He previously held a Senior Research Officer and Assistant Director position in the Methodology Division of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and is currently a Fellow of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute.

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Associate Professor Ben Edwards is a Senior Fellow at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods. An expert in longitudinal and life course studies and quantitative social scientist, Ben focuses on public policy research in the area of child and adolescent development, informal carers, intergenerational impacts of trauma (e.g. veterans, refugees) and natural disasters (e.g. drought, bushfires, cumulative disasters). He is a member of scientific advisory groups for the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth, Generation Victoria and a longitudinal cohort study in the Philippines. Ben has advised the OECD, United Nations and Australian Federal and State Government departments in designing longitudinal studies and evaluations, child welfare, non-cognitive skills, and crime prevention.

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Professor Matthew Gray is Director of the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods. Previous positions include Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Director of Research for the College of Arts and Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies (2005–2010). He has published research on a wide range of social and economic policy issues including those related to Indigenous Australians. He has particular expertise in work and family issues, labour economics, social capital and social inclusion, measuring wellbeing, the economic consequences of divorce, child support, and social and economic policy development. He has undertaken extensive work on economic policy issues involving Indigenous Australians, including health status, labour market outcomes, poverty and the CDEP scheme.

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Kate Sollis is a Research Officer and PhD Candidate at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods. Her background is in statistics and social policy, with a particular interest in the measurement of wellbeing. She has previously worked as a Research Officer at ARACY (The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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Citation

Biddle, N., Edwards, B., Gray, M. and Sollis, K., ANU Poll #33 Hardship, distress, and resilience: The initial impacts of COVID-19 in Australia [Computer file]. Canberra: Australian Data Archive, The Australian National University, 2020.

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