The level of trust in the Abbott government has soared in three months as public attention shifts from the budget to a heightened sense of nationalism in the context of national security, a new survey indicates.
In the middle of the year only 26 per cent of people thought the federal government could be trusted to do the right thing for the Australian people.
At the end of October the figure had climbed to 36 per cent - the highest level of trust in the federal government recorded since 2009 by the Mapping Social Cohesion survey.
The increase in trust coincides with a realignment of what the public considers "the most important problem facing Australia today".
In June and July, more than a third of respondents nominated the economy as the biggest problem, and government/politicians second.
The economy was still the No 1 problem in October, but defence and national security replaced government/politicians as the second most important problem facing the country, with government dropping out of the top five.
"The proportion identifying issues related to terrorism, national security, defence increased from less than 1 per cent in June-July to 17 per cent in October," the survey said.
The Mapping Social Cohesion 2014 survey was led by Professor Andrew Markus from Monash University and was funded by the Scanlon Foundation in partnership with the Australian Multicultural Foundation.
A national survey of 1526 respondents with landline and mobile telephone numbers and an online survey of 1070 respondents were conducted in June and July.
A follow-up snap phone survey over 21-22 October, involving 500 respondents, indicated a "heightened sense of nationalism in a context of perceived threats to national security".
The snap survey showed big increases in the number of people indicating "a sense of belonging in Australia" and strongly agreeing with the statement "in the modern world, maintaining the Australian way of life and culture is important".
Professor Markus said the improved level of trust in the Abbott government came with qualifications.
"This is an atypical period, a period of turbulence and daily headlines [about security], and that is hopefully not going to go on," he said.
"The issue for the Abbott government is when things calm down what people face is the reality of budget cuts and so on and the impact that has on their domestic finances. At the end of the day that is the most immediate focus people have," he said.
The mid-year survey demonstrated public concern about Australia's system of government - only 15 per cent of respondents believed it "works fine as it is".
Federal Parliament and political parties were ranked second last and last in a list of nine institutions in terms of trust. Hospitals were the most trusted.
"There is substantial dissatisfaction with the workings of the political system and low level of respect for politicians, political parties and Parliament," the report noted.
Professor Markus said that though Australia did not have a "crisis in democracy", attitudes towards government and politicians in Australia were at a "low point".
"There is a great distrust in the Australian system," Professor Markus said.
"There are two factors that build trust - you build trust by delivering what people want and by being true to your word, by keeping your promises.
"Now a government gets elected and within three months it sort of breaks those promises - that's really serious, you couldn't do anything worse to undermine trust. People are not idiots."
The survey indicated that many younger voters had switched off politics.
More than a quarter of respondents said they were not interested in politics, and of them were aged between 18 and 34.
