Doctors who don’t bill in bulk and real estate agents can’t be trusted, while firefighters are considered saints, a new study finds.
New results published in the Governance Institute of Australia Ethics Index 2023 revealed the country’s least trustworthy professions.
The medical sector came well ahead, with paramedics, firefighters, nurses and bulk-billing GPs seen as the most favorable.
One exception however is GPs not offering bulk billing for medical appointments, with 26 per cent of respondents saying they were “somewhat unethical”.
Politicians and CEOs were criticized by respondents, however, with state and federal politicians ranking low, but still above real estate agents.
Firefighters are considered the most ethical people in Australia in a recent study ranking workers by their profession.
Highlights of the study indicate that the importance of ethics is at an unprecedented level and that the Voice to Parliament referendum has been a topic of major interest to Australians.
Even though the price of medicines is a sore point for many, pharmacists are still in the right place: 73 percent of those surveyed consider them “very ethical”.
This puts them one place above nurses, who are also considered exceptionally ethical by 72 percent of people.
Others featured prominently on the list include GPs, daycare/kindergarten educators, primary school teachers, vets, dentists and secondary school teachers.
Professions that have an unethical reputation include more powerful positions, such as company president, chief executive officer, and lawyer.
CEOs and other top executives in the private sector were ranked as more ethical than local, state and federal politicians – in that order.
Federal politicians were grouped into the “somewhat unethical” category, falling three percent below the neutral bar.
In a fierce real estate and rental market, it’s no surprise that real estate agents are rated the most unethical in the annual index.
Real estate agents rank 16 percentage points below foreign business executives and federal politicians, and have fallen one point in favor since the 2022 index survey.
This result follows a series of incidents and comments, from companies exploiting the market to an agent who claimed: “It’s not the market that dictates the price of your house, it’s the agent that the fact “.
GPs were generally considered ethical if they offered bulk billing, but those who did not raised the suspicions of those surveyed by the institute
Real estate agents come at the bottom of the list of ethical professions, behind politicians, lawyers and CEOs.
Other areas surveyed in the study included organizations, sectors and information on The Voice to see what the country was thinking.
The most reliable sectors were health and education, which reflected the top positions in the occupational rankings.
The least trusted sector is the media, which fell nine percentage points in the negative, although 74 percent of the country’s citizens consider their ethical standards “very important.”
The upcoming referendum was covered in the research. The study found that 35 per cent of respondents found having a First Nations voice in Parliament in the Constitution to be “somewhat ethical”.
Overall, the most reliable sources of information about The Voice were government websites, broadcast media, and family or friends.
The least credible information is found in advertisements and on social networks.
Speaking to the institute about media coverage of The Voice, Charles Prouse, chief executive of NyikBar which supports First Nations businesses, said the media was not doing its job.
“It’s extremely disappointing and the impact of this is enormous, in terms of public discourse and … people are not challenged on their facts or rather on their lack of facts,” Mr. Prouse.
Since the Labor government announced the publication of The Voice, Indigenous issues have also been seen as ethically ambiguous by those surveyed.
The Voice to Parliament referendum was a topic of research interest, with government websites considered a reliable source of information regarding the 14 October vote.
