Scott Morrison has been deemed more competent in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic than Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, even winning approval across the political divide, new research has found.
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In the latest Democracy 2025 report on political trust during COVID-19, researchers from the Universities of Southampton, Canberra and Oxford found citizens looked more fondly on leaders who took advice from experts and other parties when responding to the pandemic.
Polls conducted by Ipsos MORI across Australia Italy, the UK and the US showed 68 per cent of Australians surveyed thought Scott Morrison was handling the situation well.
By comparison, 49 per cent of Italians surveyed thought the same of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
The assessment was even more bleak in the UK, which has one of the highest deaths per capita from COVID-19. Only 37 per cent of residents surveyed thought Boris Johnson had handled the pandemic well.
In the US, just 35 per cent thought President Donald Trump had performed well.
The partisan divide was sharpest in the US. There, 85 per cent of Democrats thought Donald Trump was doing a poor job compared to 19 per cent of Republicans.
In the UK, 70 per cent of Labour voters panned Boris Johnson's performance, compared to 17 per cent of Conservatives.
But in Australia, only 29 per cent of Labor voters thought Scott Morrison had done a poor job, compared to 9 per cent of Coalition voters.
Australia also rated its leader higher in terms of openness (55 per cent agreed Scott Morrison had been open and transparent in his handling of the outbreak compared to 36 per cent of UK and US respondents) and consensus (71 per cent said Morrison had listened to experts during the crisis compared to 34 per cent in the US).
The surveys included around 1000 people in each country and were conducted in May and June.
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Professor Mark Evans, director of Democracy 2025 at the Museum of Australian Democracy said the results showed public trust was particularly important during the pandemic.
"Without it the changes to public behaviour necessary to contain and ultimately prevent the spread of infection are slower and more resource intensive. People need to trust the government to support more government intervention that makes a difference."
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