Trust in the Government has slumped since COVID. This decline in confidence is impacting even independent statutory bodies and authorities that would have once relied on their government connection to lend them credibility.
Following a ‘Sentiments Survey’ among members of the public and licence holders, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has now applied to remove the Australian Government coat-of-arms and other government ‘branding’ from their public facing material including the clothing they wear to Field Days. They’re essentially having to rebrand to rebuild trust — “rebuilding trust” seems to be the theme for 2024.
The Australian public, including water licence holders, perceive a lack of independence and therefore they mistrust the MDBA. On one hand, it’s becoming a challenge for the MDBA to engage with the public over perceptions they’re from the government, which can’t be trusted, yet on the other hand, the MDBA still makes use of the Government coat-of-arms on published reports to provide a sense of authority when its needed.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. It is good to see you, Mr Grant.
Mr Grant: You too, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: I have some questions about the sentiment survey. Who is surveyed, how many people are surveyed and how are they selected?
Mr Grant: I don’t have those exact figures before me in my notes, but we are happy to provide them to you.
Senator ROBERTS: But could you talk about them now—not the exact numbers; we will get those on notice. Perhaps you could talk about how you make sure this survey is accurate and representative.
Mr Blacker: It is critically important that the design of that survey has a method which makes sure that we capture all of the various sentiments at different locations. We look at geographic representation, at volume and at the ability to show a ‘representative’. So there is the number of people to whom we speak and the different categories of how we speak to them—whether face to face, in focus groups, online or via telephone. We use a range of different methods. We break that down to capture all of the different aspects across the basin geographically that are going to represent that. Then we break down the results accordingly.
Senator ROBERTS: So that selection process is done internally.
Mr Grant: It is conducted by the contracted survey company ORIMA.
Senator ROBERTS: So you specify the broad range of people, and then they will do the selection?
Mr Blacker: They do the selection and make sure that it is statistically valid and that the results are reliable.
Senator ROBERTS: Perhaps you could comment on the decrease in perceptions of independence and who they are referring to as being not as independent; is that you?
Mr Grant: The public broadly, as well as water licenceholders.
Senator ROBERTS: So the public generally perceive a decrease in independence?
Mr Grant: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Is that of your office?
Mr Grant: Yes, it is more their perception of our independence. An example that came out of the survey was that with any material that says ‘the Hon. Troy Grant’ they think I am a government representative. So we are removing that from our publications. On any of our promotional material we have the Inspector-General logo. Because we are funded by the Australian government, the Australian government coat of arms sits on our shirt. So when we go to a field day like AgQuip and engage with people, the sentiment is: ‘I am not talking to you; you’re just another mob from the government.’ We have that conversation, explaining that we are independent, and then they engage thoroughly. For that type of thing, we have inquired and sought approval to not have that on our clothing when we are at field days, et cetera. But there is a flipside to that. Being the body we are, the reports we produce and publish have the coat of arms on them because it gives them that authority figure. So there are two parts to the sentiment in that regard.
CHAIR: That would make it hard to manage. On the one hand it is an upside, and on the other hand it is not.
Mr Grant: We consider ourselves to be the ‘little engine that could’, so we overcome any challenges.
Mr Blacker: We break the ‘who’ down by groups so that we can see the different types of things people are telling us. We look at community as a broad, we look at water licenceholders and we look at First Nations. We break the results down by category. Each one of those, again, is built to be statistically valid through the methodology.
Senator ROBERTS: The comment about independence would indicate to me that, if they perceive that you are from the government and they are a bit wary, there is not so much trust for the government involved in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Mr Grant: There is a general sentiment of distrust of all governments out there, from what we are hearing.
Senator ROBERTS: I wasn’t talking about the Albanese government; I meant the federal government.
CHAIR: Any government.
Mr Grant: My answer is that all governments are perceived that way.
CHAIR: Like all politicians.
