Just months after Australia legislated to establish the long-anticipated National Anti-Corruption Agency, our standing is back on the rise in Transparency International’s annual Global Corruption Perceptions Index. This is a small but important turn-around following a decade of steady decline.
Australia ranked 13th out of 180 countries in the index released today, up from a low of 18th last year. The index ranks countries on their perceived levels of public sector corruption – the higher the score, the less perceived corruption.
Australia was ranked as high as seventh in 2012. But since then, the country has been trending downward. From 2012 to 2021, Australia dropped 12 points on the index, more than any OECD country apart from Hungary, which also fell 12 points. The only countries to have fallen by more are Syria, Cyprus and Saint Lucia.
