ANU School of Politics and International Relations Head Professor Professor Nicholas Biddle told AAP he was shocked to see interpersonal trust had fallen to 5.32 out of a scale of 10. He says ANU has been collecting wellbeing data since 2008, but ramped up efforts since the pandemic. “To a little bit of our surprise, there has been a continuation of these quite volatile conditions,” he told AAP. The way Australian’s feel about how the country’s democracy operates also fell significantly, dropping nearly three per cent to 62.8 per cent. Professor Biddle says this has grown significantly in the past year, rising from 66.9 per cent in May 2025 to 72 per cent in June 2026.