The public’s perception of bureaucratic ethics has rebounded after a three-year period of decline.
The public service and government sector was rated a score of 46 by The Governance Institute of Australia’s Ethical Score Index 2023. This increased from 38 in 2022, 46 in 2021 and 56 in 2020.
By occupation, the top three jobs for the sector by ethics were fire services, ambulance services and CSIRO scientists.
State public servants were rated more ethical than federal, although the latter was up from the year before.
Politicians from all jurisdictions made up the bottom third, although their ethics scores increased year on year (YoY).
CSIRO maintained its spot as the most ethical public sector organisation – followed by Border Force and the ACCC.
Although it received a 10-point boost YoY, the federal parliament was rated the most unethical for the area.
Financial sector regulators had the largest decrease, down five points from the year prior.
Regarding the boost for government and politicians, RBC Capital Markets managing director Su-Lin Ong attributed it to the public’s reactions to cost-of-living relief measures.
“However, we would caution that government promises to deliver lower utility bills are fraught with risks given that there are factors well outside the government’s control that influence energy prices,” Ong said.
The increasing use of AI was rated the third top ethical challenge for 2024.
Growing concern about how AI is regulated reflects how platforms like ChatGPT have been widely publicised, according to Macquarie University’s Niloufer Selvadurai.
“There’s an enforcement issue, and a lot of the AI angst around law actually should be about enforcement because we do have negligence law, product liability laws, all sorts of laws that could apply,” the technology law professor said.
“It’s not like we’re this unregulated space in AI, it’s just that they haven’t been enforced in the AI space. For example, the ACCC hasn’t taken any action on AI-generated work to date.”
Of those surveyed, 73% said there was an “urgent ethical obligation” for companies to disclose all data breaches. At the moment, legal obligations for disclosure only cover serious breaches.
The index was based on responses from 1,000 Australians and was conducted in June and July.
Last year, the same index associated a downward trend in ethics with the COVID-19 pandemic trust bubble bursting.
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