Trust in Australian public services: 2025 Annual Report
About the Survey of Trust in Australian public services
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Over 82,000 responses collected since March 2019. Feedback on Australian public services, also known as Federal, National, or Commonwealth services. |
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National representative samples based on quotas for age, gender, and location. Quality assured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Designed and updated in consultation with agencies. |
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We publish an Interactive Dashboard on the survey results, which allows people to further explore the data and includes service profile information and demographics. Our micro data is made accessible to approved researchers by sharing data with the Australian Data Archive operated through the Australian National University. For more details about the survey, visit: or email: |
About the report
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Reporting on over 15,000 responses from July 2024 to June 2025, as well as data from previous years. Data collected from over 1,000 people each month, reporting their experience from the past year |
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Report shows feedback on services delivered by 15 agencies and master programs (e.g. Medicare), hereafter referred to collectively as agencies. |
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For the first time in 2024–25, we collected data on what service activities respondents undertook. We tracked over 120 different activities across the 15 agencies. This new data allows us to compare similar service activities and make inferences about where we are seeing examples of better practice. |
Key Insights
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Overall trust in Australian public services has increased significantly in the past year, by four percentage points to 62%.[1] |
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Trust in specific services used has increased to 73%[2] in 2025, compared to 71% in 2024. Satisfaction with public services has increased by one percentage point to 69%.[3] |
The most trusted services and those with the highest levels of satisfaction were provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and Medicare.
Trust and/or satisfaction has increased by more than five percentage points in 5 out of 15 agencies, including Centrelink, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, and National Disability Insurance Scheme.
When asked why their trust had increased, people most often talked about:
- reduced wait times
- improved digital services
- greater transparency and communication
- improved service quality and staff helpfulness.
Respondents were:
- most satisfied[4] with respectful interactions with staff and being able to achieve what they set out to do
- least satisfied[5] with options to provide feedback on the service experience and elements of service processes, such as clarity of how the service makes decisions and being kept informed of progress and wait times.
Trust and satisfaction are linked to people’s individual characteristics, reasons for accessing services and service access experiences.
- On average, women trusted public services less than men (59% to 66%). However, women’s trust has increased from 53% in 2023–24 to 59% in 2024–25.
- Trust in public services was highest for people aged 18–34 (70%), and had the biggest increase, now being 9 percentage points higher than last year.
Footnotes
[1] Q7 – Overall trust is the proportion of people who answered “Strongly agree” or “Agree” when asked “How much do you agree with the following statement – ‘I can trust Australian public services’”.
[2] Q26 – Trust in specific services is the proportion of people who answered “Strongly agree” or “Agree” when asked “How much do you agree with the following statement – ‘The service is trustworthy’” about a specific service. The proportion is adjusted pro rata for the amount of services each individual was asked about.
[3] Q22 – Satisfaction is the proportion of people who answered “Completely satisfied” or “Satisfied” when asked “Thinking about your overall experience with the above services, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you?”
[4] Q27 – Proportion of people who answered “Strongly agree” or “Agree” when asked how much they agreed with statements about their service experience. The proportion is adjusted pro rata for the amount of services each individual was asked about.
[5] Q27 – Proportion of people who answered “Strongly disagree” or “Disagree” when asked how much they agreed with statements about their service experience. The proportion is adjusted pro rata for the amount of services each individual was asked about.