Abstract

This paper reports findings from the June 2026 wave of the ANUpoll, conducted with 3,543 adult Australians between 18 June and 6 July 2026, and draws on 29 prior waves stretching back to October 2019. It is the second wave of a new longitudinal cohort, with 1,851 respondents also having completed the March 2026 survey. Analysis finds that wellbeing is steady, but at a low base, and that stability is not the same as recovery. Life satisfaction remained flat between March and June 2026, at 6.22 out of 10 in both waves. Financial stress was similarly stable (33.0 per cent finding it difficult or very difficult in June, compared to 34.9 per cent in March), and satisfaction with the direction of the country ticked up slightly, from 46.0 to 46.6 per cent, though not significantly so. March and June 2026 remain the only two quarters since January 2020 in which more Australians were dissatisfied than satisfied with the direction of the country. As in previous ANUpolls, age, education and employment are the strongest predictors of wellbeing, with older Australians, degree holders and the employed reporting more positive outcomes across measures.

Satisfaction with democracy fell over the quarter, but principled support for democracy held. Satisfaction with the way democracy works in Australia fell significantly, from 65.7 to 62.8 per cent, the lowest reading since the question began to be asked regularly in January 2023, driven by a rise in the proportion dissatisfied rather than very dissatisfied. Drawing on the longitudinal sample, the decline was smaller for younger Australians and degree holders, both groups whose satisfaction was already higher in March, meaning pre-existing gaps are widening rather than narrowing.

Principled support for democracy, by contrast, held steady and has increased significantly over the past year, from 66.9 per cent in May 2025 to 72.0 per cent in June 2026. Agreement with core democratic norms, such as that no one should be above the law, remains very high and largely unchanged since March. Across sixteen democracy-related statements, the one significant movement was a rise in support for the right to join peaceful protests, from 72.6 to 77.0 per cent. Australians are becoming more critical of how democracy is being delivered without withdrawing their commitment to democracy itself.

The most worrying finding from the paper was that interpersonal trust has fallen to 5.32 on a scale of 0 to 10, the lowest value recorded in ANUpoll during the 2020s. This sits below the pre-COVID value of 5.53 recorded in October 2019 and reverses the increase in trust observed during the pandemic. All three underlying measures declined, with the sharpest fall in the proportion saying that most people can be trusted. As with other measures, trust is higher among older Australians, degree holders and the employed.

Bringing these measures together, satisfaction with democracy is far more closely associated with how Australians view their country and each other than with their own material circumstances. There is a 45.1 percentage point gap in satisfaction with democracy between those satisfied with the direction of the country and those who are not, and a 43.4 percentage point gap between those with low and high levels of interpersonal trust. Both are substantially larger than the differences associated with a person's own economic position, which suggests that responses framed solely around household economic conditions may not be sufficient to shift democratic sentiment.

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