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Victorian teenager Riley Williams is eager to have the right to vote next year. "I think I've got some research to do before I commit to anything or any parties, but it should be exciting," he said. Politics and democracy are on the 17-year-old's mind, but research shows trust in national institutions is declining. Confidence in democracy is markedly lower in regional areas and amongst young people, according to a study by independent organisation McKinnon. The results do not surprise some Tallangatta high school students, who are preparing to engage in democracy for the first time. "A lot of my friends don't take an interest in it, so it's probably a bit daunting when it does come to voting because they don't really know how it works," student Jade Wood said. Regional confidence in democracy lags The inaugural McKinnon Index released today shows Australians living outside metropolitan areas have less faith in democracy than their counterparts in major cities. The research results are split into three categories: major cities, inner regional, and a combined "outer regional and remote" zone for people living further from major cities. The index findings show that 66.4 per cent of people in major cities are confident election outcomes are fair, which diminishes to 62.7 per cent in inner regional areas and 52.7 per cent in outer regional and remote areas. A little more than 5 per cent of Australians disagree that democracy is preferable to any other form of government. Younger Australians outside major cities are over-represented in that sentiment. There was also a 21.6 per cent dissatisfaction rate with electoral commissions such as the AEC and similar state bodies in outer regional areas, compared to 13.5 per cent in major cities. A total of 65.3 per cent of outer regional residents disagreed that federal politicians understood and represented them, compared to a national average of 56.4 per cent and a metropolitan average of 54.5 per cent. The McKinnon report highlights that young men in rural and remote areas have among the lowest confidence in elections, while young women in regional areas are over-represented in not understanding how democracy works. McKinnon plans to release the index annually to track shifts in trust, confidence and satisfaction with democracy. 'Causes for concern' McKinnon's research has linked falling trust in democracy outside major cities to frustration with regional government service delivery and a continuing decline in the number of local media outlets. "The less people that consume news, and that's certainly what's happening in the regions, the lower their confidence in the democracy," McKinnon executive director and former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill said. He said more could be done in Australia to protect democracy and democratic institutions based on the index. "There is reason to be proud, but there are also causes for concern," Mr Weatherill said. "The number of people that don't understand our system or don't fully support it, they're in [the] minority, but it's a significant minority. "When we identify particular areas, like regions that sit outside the broad consensus, it means that we have to turn around and face those issues." Australia's slow democratic dip Australian National University research supports the McKinnon findings. Professor Nicholas Biddle, head of the university's school of politics, warned that trust in democracy has been slowly falling in Australia for years. "There's been a long-term decline in confidence in institutions, satisfaction with democracy across many established high-income democracies across the world," he said. "In Australia, the decline has been slower and it hasn't really accelerated too much over the last few years." Dr Biddle said lower education levels and fewer opportunities outside major cities could also be linked to a lack of confidence in democracy, along with Labor being in government. "Regional and remote areas, whose members at the moment are likely to be in opposition, that kind of feeds into their trust of democracy and the system," he said. Dr Biddle said Australia needed to guard against complacency, but should be proud of its democratic institutions. "If we want that to remain, then we need to continue to reinvest, continue to innovate and really identify what are the real policy challenges, what are the real issues that people are identifying in their lives and have a targeted focus on those," he said.
