Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong is the most trusted politician in the country, according to a new poll, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is the most distrusted.

Wong, who was also the most trusted in last year’s Roy Morgan poll, was joined by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Jim Chalmers as the politicians who recorded more trust than distrust.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said the high levels of trust in Wong shows she is an asset to the government.

“The high levels of trust in Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price help to explain how she was able to cut through during the Voice debate,” she said.

“The very high levels of distrust in Peter Dutton, and others in the Opposition make it unlikely they would be able to win government in the current climate.”

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was a central figure in the Liberal Party’s opposition to the Voice to Parliament. Photo: Getty

Wong, who first won a Senate seat in 2001, became Foreign Minister after Labor’s 2022 election victory and is the first Asian-Australian and openly LGBTI person to hold the position.

The survey of people over the age of 18 was performed from November 16 to 20, Australians were asked four questions via SMS:

• Which government leaders do you trust?
• Why do you trust them?
• Which government leaders do you distrust?
• Why do you distrust them?

Honeymoon over

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has gone from the second most trusted politician in 2022 to the third most distrusted after a disastrous campaign during the failed Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.

2023 hasn’t been kind to Anthony Albanese, who fell from one of Australia’s most trusted politicians to one of the least trusted. Photo: AAP

A recent poll from Resolve Political Monitor found that Labor’s primary vote had fallen dramatically in the past year, with the two major parties polling at 50-50 on two-party-preferred preference, but Levine said Albanese remains in a strong position against Dutton despite having a net distrust score of minus three.

“Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a net distrust score of minus 14: that’s almost five times worse than the Prime Minister,” she said.

“This is remarkably similar to the picture immediately before the Victorian election, held just 13 months ago, and puts Albanese in a strong position electorally.”

When Daniel Andrews beat Matthew Guy at the 2022 Victorian state election, the pair shared virtually identical trust/distrust scores to their federal counterparts.

Levine said it is a worrying trend for Dutton.

“His scores are moving very close to Scott Morrison’s just weeks before the Coalition suffered a disastrous defeat at the 2022 federal election,” she said.

She said after reading the responses to the poll, she believes the issue of distrust with Dutton and Albanese is less personal and more ideological.

“The leaders are proxies for the great political divide we are seeing emerge on so many issues,’ Levine said.

“The Voice and Gaza being the most high profile.”

The rest

Former PM Scott Morrison dropped one spot from the most distrusted politician to the second most, while Barnaby Joyce, retiring Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Energy Minister Chris Bowen also performed poorly with the public.

Greens leader Adam Bandt was the 10th most distrusted politician, while Pauline Hansen was overtaken by 11 of her colleagues, falling from fourth last year to 15th in 2023.

Clive Palmer, who consistently rated as one of the least trusted in the country, dropped out of the rankings as a former politician.

In 2022, none of the top 10 most distrusted politicians were from the Labor Party, but in 2023 half are, showing the shift in perception and scrutiny that being in government brings.