It’s early days in Michelle Rowland’s tenure as Attorney-General and much depends on what she eventually does, not what she says.

But if she delivers on her rhetoric, the first law officer looks set to secure her place as a reformer by embarking on a long-overdue program to rebuild trust in the justice system.

It looks like one of the ways she hopes to achieve this goal is by rejuvenating civics education so more young people understand the benefits of our democratic institutions.

This is a goal that should be beyond party politics. If it is implemented in the same apolitical spirit, it will strengthen Australian democracy at a time of growing external threat.

The decline in the effectiveness of civics education has long been apparent in the reports of the National Assessment Program of Civics and Citizenship.

For more than a decade this program has found that trust in the courts consistently falls once school students move from primary school to year 10 at high school.

Last year’s report shows this trend is worsening. The proportion of year 10 students who trusted the courts was just 64 per cent – down from 70 per cent in 2019.

That is consistent with the key findings in last week’s Rule of Law Survey by my organisation, the Rule of Law Education Centre.

The headline finding is horrific. As outlined in this space last week, just 47 per cent of those polled believe the legal system is providing equal treatment for everyone regardless of background.

This means Rowland was entirely justified this week in nominating a focus on civics and trust in our democratic institutions when she outlined her plans and expectations to staff of the Attorney-General’s Department.

“At a time when democracy is being challenged, it is the trust and integrity of our legal institutions and the justice system that are of utmost importance,” she told departmental officers on Tuesday.

One of the clearest lessons that can be drawn from the Rule of Law Survey is that the community needs a much better understanding of the branches of government – particularly the judiciary.

Rowland has only been Attorney-General since May, but before entering politics she was a lawyer in private practice for a decade and has clearly been paying attention as school students lost trust in the justice system.

One of the practical ways in which she hopes to address this problem is by focusing on young people and delivering innovative ways of embedding enduring pride in our democratic institutions.

The text of her address shows she hopes to do this not merely by working with officers of her own department but by working across the government.

Her ambitions for the rule of law extend beyond Australia and into the Pacific where it looks like she might seek to leverage her Fijian heritage, which derives from her Fijian mother.

“There are real leadership opportunities for Australia in positioning ourselves with like-minded democracies in the Pacific, and the ways in which Australia can support capacity building partnerships with our neighbours,” she said.

“As someone of Fijian heritage – apparently the first for an Australian Attorney-General – my interest here is both professional and personal,” she told departmental officers.

The task confronting the Attorney-General is immense.

The Rule of Law survey found more people trust the Australian Human Rights Commission to protect their rights than the courts.

And this is despite the fact that the courts alone are empowered to make conclusive rulings on legal rights – and the commission was stripped of that power in Brandy’s case in 1992.

When 1000 people across the nation were asked to rank the institutions they trust most to protect their rights, 54 per cent nominated the Human Rights Commission followed by the police (22 per cent), the courts (17 per cent) and finally parliament (7 per cent).

This suggests that many people either do not understand the role of the courts in protecting legal rights or – even worse – they believe that role is based on personal preferences, not law.

The survey, which was conducted by polling agency Insightfully, found almost a quarter of respondents – 23 per cent – do not believe judges generally decide cases based only on the law and not their personal preferences.

Just a bare majority – 54 per cent – believe judges rely only on the law rather than personal preferences.

Keep in mind that these findings concern perceptions, not the reality of judicial decision-making. But they point to a significant lack of confidence in one of the main branches of our system of government.

The starting point for rebuilding trust in all our institutions of state is to manage expectations, not just among school students but among the entire community.

It needs to be made very clear that under our system of government federal parliament and its agencies are not empowered to solve all our problems.

The power of parliament is limited to those areas that are outlined in the Constitution. And if governments exceed those limits, it is entirely legitimate for such action to be checked by the High Court.

This is what the Constitution is all about. It is a framework for limited government that is subject to checks and balances.

The challenge is to explain that in civics classes across the nation using terms that are apolitical. If Rowland can achieve that, her plan deserves cross-party support.

A copy of the Rule of Law Survey 2025 can be found here: https://www.ruleoflaw.org.au/rule-of-law-survey-2025/