Australians have lost trust in our major institutions, new survey shows

Nathan Jolly

September 16, 2024 9:15

Australians have lost trust in our major institutions, new survey shows

Bunnings is the most trusted brand in Australia for a third straight quarter, as a slew of once-trusted Australian institutions and brands tumble in the rankings.

This is according to a Roy Morgan quarterly survey that measures the levels of trust and distrust Australians consumers have in a brand.

While the top three brands – Bunnings, ALDI and Kmart – remain unchanged at the top of the heap, and a number of Australian brands have retained their trust levels over the quarter, with Australia Post, Myer, Big W, and NRMA all remaining in the 10 most trusted brands list, a number of major brands sit among the least-trusted in the country.

Optus is the country’s most distrusted brand for a second quarter in a row, the continued fall-out from the disastrous national outage last November, and the telco’s tepid reaction to the distress it caused. Although owned by a Singapore telco, Optus is an Australian-operated brand.

Qantas has also struggled through a nightmare run of PR blunders to move from third most distrusted brand to second – consider that it swapped places with Meta, who are currently arguing the merits of protecting children online, and you’ll get a picture of how mightily the airline has crashed.

Qantas has been further battered by a study into the world’s best airline rewards programs by insights lab point.me, which “examined the nuances of over 60 worldwide frequent flyer programs” and found Qantas ranked 24th.

In particular, point.me criticised the Aussie airline for the amount of redemption points needed for rewards, and the difficult in using points and rewards when booking. Of a possible 100, Qantas was given a score of 38.39.

You can trace the airline’s fall from grace through the Roy Morgan rankings: in June, 2022, Qantas was deemed by Australians to be the sixth most-trusted brand, behind Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, ALDI, and Kmart.

In the September 2022 quarter, Qantas slipped to ninth most-trusted brand; by December 2022, they had plummeted to 40th place, becoming the 13th most distrusted brand by June 2023, overtaking its own budget airline Jetstar.

Likewise, Coles has continued its fall from grace, since allegations of price gouging: after plummeting from fifth most-trusted to ninth least-trusted in the March quarter — a drop of 221 places — the supermarket giant has fallen further, now the fourth least-trusted brand in the country.

Giving them a run for their money is rival Woolworths, who slid 194 places, from 34th most-trusted in March to fifth least-trusted just three months later.

In the December 2023 rankings, Woolworths were seen as the second most-trusted brand, while Coles was fifth.

Trust in Telstra has increased slightly – or, rather, distrust has decreased – with the telco moving from fourth least-trusted to sixth. Meanwhile, News Corp has become the seventh least trusted brand, and remains the least-trusted media company operating in Australia.

It’s not all bad news for trust in local brands, with Bendigo Bank up two places to become the 11th most-trusted brand, and independent supermarket chain IGA up one place to 13th. Department store David Jones has also crept up one spot to 18th.