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Poll says Aussie democracy AOK

By Peter Timmins

The ANU Poll of 1000 Australians in March about what they think about governance includes:

Confidence in Institutions
? Australians have most confidence in the defence forces, universities and the police, and least confidence in the public service, trade unions and banks.
? In an international context, the confidence Australians express in their institutions is some of the highest in the world.

Satisfaction with Democracy
? There is a high level of satisfaction with democracy in Australia.
? Satisfaction has been consistently high since the late 1960s, with the partial exception of the period immediately after the 1975 constitutional crisis.
? Australia ranks as one of the countries with the highest levels of satisfaction with democracy in the world.

What constitutes "democracy" for the purposes of the poll isn't mentioned.

It will be surprising if the Governance Group at the 2020 Summit at the weekend concludes everything is as rosy as this sample of punters seems to think.There are lots of "could do much better"markers starting with the right to access government information. I could but won't go on.

Full post as published by Open and Shut on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).