According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, no single institution (Government, Business, NGOs, and Media) receives a score high enough to be deemed trusted, with an alarming 59% of Australians worrying that leaders are intentionally misleading them.
The Edelman Trust Barometer underscores that eroding trust is already leading to societal instability and political polarisation within Australia, and it’s spiralling down even further.
Australia and its people have faced a challenging few years, marked by a long list of trials including the COVID-19 pandemic with its countless socio-economic impacts, the referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, and the ongoing cost of living and housing crises.
These challenges have been testing the country’s cohesion time and again.
Middle-aged Wollongong retailer Bob (not his real name), who maintains strong connections with the community he services, and who prefers to remain anonymous, is highly sceptical about the current state of affairs in Australia, and believes people shouldn’t have to be dealing with the financial issues that they are enduring now.
“Australia is packed with natural resources like oil, gas, and coal, and it’s also rich in agriculture,” Mr Bob said.
“This country is uber, uber rich, yet, we’re battling, we’re just working to survive.
“Why have we become such an expensive country to live in when we see such abundance of everything, everywhere around us?
“People are starting to feel like they’re being insulted, being treated like cattle fodder.
“That’s where I start to lose trust in the custodians that are supposed to be managing our countries, people, and institutions.”
Bob is one of so many Australians who believe that ‘all we see is but a game of chess’ – a game in which the public is complacently losing to the establishment.
“You begin to realise that we are all being treated like fools,” MR Bob said.
“People are at their most vulnerable now and the political establishment is promising them false hopes.
“We’re being misled, because someone is controlling the narrative.
“You got to believe it’s all orchestrated.”
Bob embodies the indignation felt by a growing number of concerned citizens about why Australia’s crises keep mounting and how they are being dealt with by the ones in power.
MR Bob asserts that the primary culprits manipulating the public and benefiting at its expense are the central banks.
“While the young people are influenced to protest for good causes like the environment and clean energy, they fail to see that somebody or something else is moving forward,” Mr Bob said.
“It’s the old adage of divide and conquer, and I believe it’s the financial side of things [moving forward], it’s the money. At the end of the day it’s all controlled by the central banks.”
Trust is considered foundational in any thriving relationship, and social scientists have long argued that without trust in those in power or in societal institutions at large, society may cease to function.
MR Bob warns of turbulent weather on the horizon, considering his cards carefully as he prepares for what lies ahead.
“When times are tough, people will listen to anybody that may offer them hope, no matter how crazy it might be.
“And this is where it gets dangerous. History is repeating itself.”
