Trust fund running very low

IN YOUR life, what have you placed your trust in the most? The old Commonwealth Bank? A particular prime minister? Maybe the Church, or a big old-fashioned retailer? How about a prominent business leader or CEO?

We all had Commonwealth Bank passbooks at school. The local bank manager even addressed the class. That’s real trust.

My family had enormous trust in AMP. It was where Dad urged us kids, to take out our first superannuation policy when we started work.

This week Edelman released its 2019 Trust Barometer.

It gives us an inkling into what has happened to our trust. And it shows our trust in institutions has never been more eroded. For the past decade, in particular, the Australian public has been massively let down. We’ve been bashed and beaten by those we once trusted implicitly.

This survey supports that contention. Most Australians, 56 per cent in fact, have ranked the government as the most broken institution in the country.

I construe that finding as a mistrust of government for a decade — in that period, we’ve knocked off five PMS. That’s worse than the revolving door of the Italian parliament.

According to Edelman, our trust meter is even below the global average. It doesn’t surprise me.

Think about how the banks and our superannuation fund managers have burnt us badly.

Think of the royal commission, and the sheer arrogance on display in the witness box. How about the Church, and all those mongrels who were supposed to care for children in various institutions? Our faith in those bodies has been shot to pieces.

And look at our state and territory governments, for instance.

They once controlled our utilities, electricity in particular.

We had some of the cheapest power and water in the world. But look at your latest bills; private retailers are sending everyday people into poverty.

Thousands of households had their power cut off, due to non-payment of bills. How shameful.

Our governments have swallowed the green cordial of climate change too. That’s not denying we have a warming problem. We do.

But it won’t be solved by treating coal as a four-letter word. Politicians too frightened to go anywhere near a new low emission coal plant to keep our lights on.

That’s become electoral poison.

And don’t get me started on governments allowing massive population growth, which races ahead of infrastructure, facilities and services, and leaves us all stuck in gridlock, in long queues at hospitals, and unable to get our kids into the local school.

We’re being swamped and there’s no plan to deal with it.

Trust. Do you have any left?