CONFIDENCE in the federal government has plunged to levels not seen since the fires, a study has found.

A little more than three in 10 people were satisfied with the government in January 2022, down from a recorded high of 60.6 per cent in May 2020.

The study was undertaken by the Australian National University (ANU) and surveyed the views of more than 3400 Australians.

Study co-author Professor Nicholas Biddle said the results were only up slightly on the government’s performance during the Black Summer bushfires when satisfaction hung around 27 per cent.

“One of the potential reasons for this drop in satisfaction with the direction of the country is that respondents don’t feel that key institutions are handling the pandemic as well as they have in the past, or as well as they should be doing given the current circumstances,” said Prof Biddle.

The survey also examined how many Australians expected to be infected with covid, with as many as 80 per cent of people indicating they thought they would catch the virus within the next six months.