![Illustration: John Shakespeare](http://web.archive.org./web/20180209213020im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/h/0/v/u/z/k/image.related.landscape.460x307.h0vtxr.png/1518208461265.jpg)
That sinking feeling: trust in politicians lower in Australia than in most other countries
Australians' sinking feeling about their institutions is so bad that it stands only 4 percentage points ahead of the very lowest-ranked country, Russia, a quasi-dictatorship run by a gangster government where there are no independent institutions and no rule of law.