As Australian Public Service Commissioner Peter Woolcott observed last month, "public expectations are high and trust in short supply".

Australia, it seems, is losing trust in government.

We are not alone.

The Edelman organisation conducts online surveys measuring public trust in government, business, NGOs and media in 28 global markets annually. The results are published as a "trust barometer".

The latest, released in mid-January, was largely ignored in this country for understandable reasons, but makes disturbing reading.

A majority of countries were either neutral or distrusting. The British were particularly miffed at placing second from the bottom, just past Russia. Australians were among the distrusting countries. Australia's total trust in institutions fell; government trust rose marginally but remained well inside the red "distrust" zone.

The exception was local/state government, which rated higher than the federal government at "neutral" rather than "distrust". This was also found in many other countries surveyed, suggesting the more distant a government from its citizens, the less likely it is to be trusted.

The Edelman surveys were completed between October and November, 2019, before bushfires peaked, or the Audit Office report into sports grants. The results might be even more disturbing today.

The Edelman findings correspond with the ANU's Australian Election Study, released late last year, showing the lowest levels of trust in government since the survey began.

A study last month by Boston Consulting and Salesforce, The Trust Imperative: why Customer Experience in Government matters made similar findings regarding data, with a third of Australians becoming less trustful of governments due to concerns about data security.

Similarly, the ANU Centre for Social Research, in findings published last month, found more than 60 per cent of Australians were concerned about potential government misuse of their data. Across the board, research findings show Australian citizens have low trust in government.

It matters because trust makes a country successful and happy. Trust reduces the costs of social and economic transactions, makes regulation easier, fosters innovation and improves wellbeing. Trust correlates closely with economic development.

We know how to build trust, whether in government, business or a not for profit.

It takes consistent and reliable delivery of products and services over a long period of time, done ethically and with transparency.

Consistency is important. Trust is slow to build. Repeating positive citizen or customer experiences provides an assurance they were not accidents but deliberate and systemic. Ethical behaviour is an obvious component of trust. So is transparency: people are more likely to trust organisations that show they have nothing to hide.

Although simple concepts, in practice they require considerable effort and commitment.

An institution can build trust only if its leaders are prepared to invest time and attention, and genuinely want greater trust.

That's not a given.

In the private sector, not all companies want to build a trusted brand - some want quick profits.

Plenty of companies make their owners rich by selling over-hyped and overpriced goods or services for a few years before winding up with no trust or goodwill left.

However, many other companies work hard on trust. They may be new (one of the hottest new Silicon Valley job titles is "chief trust officer" for an IT company) or old (banking, finance, retail, healthcare). It is not easy - as we saw in the banking royal commission, the lure of easy profits can lead even well established companies into actions that undermine customers' trust.

Neither is it a given that governments want to build trust.

Cynics take their cue from the stock market aphorism that the two basic human emotions are fear and greed. A leading US stock market reporter even publishes a patented fear and greed index to guide investors.

It has a direct bearing on politics. Many an election has been won through appeals to greed, fear or both. Handouts and pork barrelling sway votes. Negative campaigning to whip up fear can swing a marginal seat or a whole state. A senior NSW political figure says, "we will stop negative campaigning just as soon as someone shows us evidence that it doesn't work".

The problem is, fear is inimical to trust. It's a basic component of human interaction that the two are opposites.

If we fear our neighbours we are unlikely to trust them to mind our house or babysit our children. Similarly in national affairs: fear of outsiders or minorities breaks down trust, encourages "us versus them" attitudes. Political parties can and do exploit this.

Governments can choose to build trust slowly, with great effort, or play on fear to win voter support.

Recent years have seen some public service agencies enlisted in spreading fear. Robodebt was based on frightening vulnerable people into paying debts that may or may not have been owed, and which we now know the government had no legal grounds to collect.

Some, like the security agencies or Home Affairs, deliberately promote fear, whether of refugees, terrorists, extremists, organised criminals or simply foreigners. Television's Border Security show, produced in conjunction with the Australian Border Force, regularly portrays visitors to our shores as potential smugglers, criminals or biohazard importers. It fosters xenophobia, fear of people "not like us".

As long as voters continue to reward governments that promote fear and greed - of whatever party - these trends will continue and trust will fall. This is a dangerous cycle.

The impact is to an extent masked by the global slump in trust in institutions, meaning our relative standing, by comparison with others, is not dropping so fast. That is meagre comfort.

Building trust, although hard work, is a better long-term option. It is worth doing to secure Australia's future.