Trust: An issue for Australian business

For any business, trust is a fundamental asset that is to be valued. The latest Edelman Trust Barometer (now in its 26th year) shows that trust in Australia is recovering, but not evenly, and not without new cracks forming beneath the surface.

According to the 2026 report, Australia’s overall trust score across business, government, media and NGOs rose from 49 to 54 this year, lifting the country out of “distrust” territory after slipping back into it last year. It’s a rare bright spot: most developed economies stagnated or fell further behind.

But the improvement masks a deeper problem. The gap in trust between high- and low-income Australians has grown to 19 points, the widest it’s been since 2021. 73% of Australians now say they’re hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who holds different values, facts or life experiences from their own. 

This “insularity” is reshaping more than politics. Locally, it shows up at work. 42% of Australian employees say they’d rather switch departments than report to a manager with different values, and 44% would support reducing the number of foreign companies operating in Australia even if it meant higher prices.

Tom Robinson, CEO of Edelman Australia, points to three factors keeping business leaders up at night: trust fracturing along income lines, this rise in insularity and economic anxiety brought on by AI-driven disruption. “Trust isn’t collapsing,” he says, “but it is fragmenting.”

There’s a silver lining buried in the data, though. While government, media and other institutions remain far less trusted overall, employer trust is holding up better than almost anything else Edelman measures — up five points to 79% in Australia this year, still the highest-trusted institution in the country by a wide margin. For small and medium business owners, that’s a genuine asset: your staff is more likely to trust you than almost any other institution in their lives right now. Whether that trust gets used well is another matter.

None of this is happening in an economic vacuum. NAB’s latest Quarterly Business Survey shows national business confidence falling sharply — down 13 points to -19, now 22 points below its long-run average, driven largely by conflict in the Middle East and ongoing uncertainty around the federal budget. Wage costs remain the single biggest issue businesses report as affecting their confidence, followed closely by concerns about federal government policy.

For any business, this combination (fraying social trust and tightening economic conditions) makes transparency and communication more important than ever, both with staff and with customers. It also makes good financial footing more important than ever: knowing your numbers, understanding your margins and having a clear read on where costs are heading gives you room to make decisions calmly (not reactively). 

If you want to talk about a plan for your business, Wilson Porter can assist with anything from tax services to accounting matters with our chartered accountants.