Distrust in corporate Australia soars after huge profits and successive scandals but who’s responsible?
A special Roy Morgan End of Financial Year (EOFY) webinar with Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine, and Nine Network Finance Editor Chris Kohler, explored Australian views of corporate Australia including the rising level of distrust across the entire economy.
Distrust of any organisation or sector has increased significantly since the beginning of the pandemic – when there was more trust than distrust. Although the level of trust now is virtually identical to that of early 2020, distrust is now far higher – and has increased substantially over the last year since March 2023.
Now 66% of Australians distrust any organisation or sector compared to under 41% that trust any organisation or sector – a net result of -25% points, down from -17% points a year ago – a net decline of 8% points.
One of the leading drivers of rising distrust in organisations or sectors relates to companies being too motivated by profit or commercial interests, and greed, a theme mentioned by 26% of respondents compared to only 9% who said this when the pandemic began – an increase of 17% points. In comparison fewer than 1% of respondents mentioned that they trust organisations because they are not motivated by profit – a net rating of -25% points.
When asked directly, a majority of 54% of Australians say they distrust corporate Australia more than they used to compared to only 10% who trust corporate Australia more than they used to. Just over a third of Australians (36%) say there has been no change in the trustworthiness of corporate Australia.
View the Roy Morgan End of Financial Year (EOFY) Webinar with Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine and Nine Network Finance Editor Chris Kohler here. (25 mins).
Overall levels of trust vs distrust across the economy
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia). Risk Monitor, 12 month average to March 2024.
Base: Australians 14+, Latest 12 month average n=24,663.
Australians primarily blame CEOs and Managing Directors for the wave of corporate scandals
As part of the special End Of Financial Year (EOFY) webinar Roy Morgan conducted a snap poll of 2,110 Australians to find out who we blame for the wave of corporate scandals Australians have witnessed in recent years.
Roy Morgan allowed respondents to select multiple responses to the question and the majority of Australians (79%) blame the person in charge – the CEO or Managing Director.
Remarkably, two in every three Australians (65%) also blame company directors and just under half (43%) blame the Chairperson.
Interestingly, younger Australians, those aged 18-34, are far more likely to blame individual employees for letting things go wrong – at a rate of over 3:1 compared to those aged over 65.
Who do Australians hold responsible when a corporate scandal occurs (multiple responses allowed)
Source: Roy Morgan Snap Survey May 2024. Base: Australians 18+ n=2,110. Weighted results.
Question asked of respondents: “Thinking about the types of corporate scandals that have occurred in the last few years, for example data breaches (Optus, Medibank), Banking Royal Commission findings, Harvey Norman JobKeeper scandal, various Qantas scandals (e.g selling seats on already cancelled flights, illegal sacking of workers). Who do you hold responsible when a corporate scandal occurs?”
However, when Roy Morgan gave respondents only one choice by asking, “Who do you MOSTLY hold responsible when a corporate scandal occurs?” Chief Executives, at 58%, took a clear majority of responses and a commanding lead over company directors—28%—on who was most to blame.
When respondents were limited to just the one selection, Chairpersons went down from 43% in the initial multiple-choice question to just 3% of respondents.
Example of reasons Australians distrust C-Suite Executives - in their own words
The majority of respondents hold CEOs and Managing Directors responsible for the spate of corporate scandals seen in recent years and, when asked their reasons for distrust in their own words, gave a wide variety of reasons, including the examples below.
“Sacking workers when accepting taxpayer money during COVID. False advertising. CEO payments.” (QANTAS; Female, 65+, Regional VIC)
“Biased journalism and journalism influenced by CEO & management.” (NewsCorp; Female, 65+, Capital NSW / ACT)
“Completely focused on making profits for their shareholders and executive board at all costs, at the expense of their employees and their customers. No moral compass when it comes to the importance of cultural heritage and environmental degradation.” (Rio Tinto; Male, 50-64, VIC Capital)
“They can’t and/or don’t do the right thing by their customers. They hired a dodgy ex-premier (former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian – Managing Director, Enterprise and Business) on the board and now she has put her hand up to replace the CEO who was hopeless.” (Optus; Male, 50-64, VIC Capital)
“Their CEO has too much money and I’ve read about how they treat their warehouse workers.” (Amazon; Female, 18-24, VIC Capital)
“CEO should keep out of politics especially with Australia Day. Their price gouging is disgusting.” (Woolworths; Female, 65+, WA Capital)
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says Australia has faced a series of corporate scandals in recent years with companies including QANTAS, Optus, PWC, Rio Tinto and Medibank hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons:
“Distrust in corporate Australia has soared in recent years driven by anger about high corporate profits – and not helped by a procession of high-profile corporate scandals.
“As recently as the early days of the pandemic, in the first few months of 2020, there was a higher level of trust than distrust throughout the economy. However, a perception that large companies are enjoying record profits during a cost-of-living crisis has left many Australians distinctly unimpressed with the ‘top end of town’.
“Record corporate profits are a sign of rising revenue and profit margins and suggest that corporate Australia is one of the key drivers of the cost-of-living crisis by bumping up their prices to grab a larger share of the consumer’s wallet.
“Many Australians have made this connection and when we asked Australians about their levels of trust a majority of 54% distrust corporate Australia more than they used to compared to only 10% who trust corporate Australia more – a ratio of over 5:1.
“As well as alleged price gouging and profiteering by many large businesses there have been several high-profile companies in the news headlines for corporate scandals of one sort or another.
“Respondents mentioned companies including QANTAS (False advertising, sacking workers while accepting taxpayer money), Rio Tinto (destruction of cultural heritage and environmental degradation), Optus (network outages impacting customers and poor hiring decisions), Amazon (treatment of warehouse workers) and many others as examples of poor corporate behaviour.
“The companies mentioned above are all among the top 20 most distrusted brands in Australia today and have played an important role driving distrust levels to record highs.
“Australians have a clear target in mind for who to blame for this corporate malfeasance – CEOs and Managing Directors – almost 80% of Australians hold CEOs and Managing Directors responsible for the corporate failures we are all familiar with.
“For businesses to regain the trust of the community there must be a concerted effort to confront and deal with the issues Australians are calling out – including alleged ‘price gouging’ and ‘profiteering’ and these changes must come from the top down.
“At the end of the day ‘the buck stops at the top’ and that’s where solutions will be found to turn around the deteriorating perspective many Australians currently hold about our corporate giants.”
Learn more and view the Roy Morgan End of Financial Year (EOFY) Webinar with Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine and Nine Network Finance Editor Chris Kohler here. (25 mins).
To purchase the End of Financial Year (EOFY) Webinar Report visit or the Roy Morgan Wealth Report – June 2024 – visit the Roy Morgan Online Store.
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Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
