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Perceptions of authority and sources of informationPerceptions of authority and sources of information
About the author
Natasha Kassam
Natasha Kassam was Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program from 2019 to 2022, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations.
Although Australians are supportive of increased global cooperation, more have expressed confidence in Australian authorities than in the World Health Organization. Almost all of the population express confidence in the performance of chief medical officers, with 92% very or somewhat confident they are ‘doing a good job’. Most (86%) are confident the state and territory governments are doing a good job, and 82% are very or somewhat confident the federal government is doing a good job in responding to the coronavirus outbreak. A smaller majority (59%) express confidence that the WHO is ‘doing a good job responding to the coronavirus outbreak’.
Aligning with the confidence they express in the crisis response of the government, a majority of Australians (59%) say the prime minister and government officials are a preferred source of information. The ABC and government websites are preferred sources of information for half the country (50%) during the COVID-19 outbreak. Less than a third of Australians regard newspapers and news websites (31%) and commercial, pay TV news and radio (28%) as preferred sources. Only one in five Australians (20%) prefer social media for information about COVID-19, and 5% prefer information by word of mouth.
