The 5 Least Trusted Jobs Are...

Sun Herald

Sunday October 23, 2005

By Steve Dow

Journalists, psychics and politicians are all on the nose, says a recent survey. Here, people in the most distrusted professions speak out.

What do you do? Strangers ask this question all the time at parties. But sometimes the agenda is more than small talk. Your answer could determine whether the asker is going to trust you. If you declare that you're a politician, you're in the worst position. Likewise, if you sell cars or real estate, if you psychically channel the dead or, yes, if you're a journalist, you could suddenly be left standing alone, lonely and forlorn next to the dip and nibbles.

A study this year of 1500 Australians (see next page) found those were the jobs we trusted least. Australians also don't place much faith in life coaches, mortgage brokers, stockbrokers, CEOs, lawyers and taxi drivers: a lack of trust is a great leveller. By contrast, we place our trust implicitly in ambulance officers foremost, followed by firefighters, mothers, nurses and pilots. Are the rankings fair? People in the five most distrusted jobs state their case.

The Psychic

Kate Barnes, 50, started giving paid psychic readings in 1974 while managing a women's fashion boutique in Queensland's Surfers Paradise. She has also been paid to be a medium to the dead: she claims to have channelled Michael Hutchence in 2001. The late INXS singer is still playing music and enjoying the company of philosophers and poets because "anything you do here on earth you can do in spirit", she explains.

"Growing up, I wanted to sing and dance and be a performer. My mother, Sally, was a medium and a psychic, though she wasn't professional. Being psychic was just an accepted part of growing up. I started doing readings at 16 and went professional at 19. You can clarify things for people. I had one gentleman who had been seeing a GP for a year with undiagnosed walking difficulties and

I picked up that he had multiple sclerosis, which was confirmed a couple of weeks later. I work as a medium as well. I'm able to see spirits, which enables me to describe the person I'm speaking to.

I half expect the low public opinion of psychics. The sceptics don't see there are millions of people with psychic ability. People are afraid to come out and

say they are believers. I'm not very keen on psychic phone lines, though - the people working there are hiding behind the phone. They charge, on average, $300 an hour and I think it preys on people when they are vulnerable. I'd also

be very wary about people who say they can fix your problems with a spell.

Most people are curious about my work. Once at a girlfriend's party, I told one gentleman I was a professional psychic and he started screaming abuse in my face. He had been having an affair and his wife had gone and had a psychic reading, which had given her enough information to track down the mistress." the journalist

David Broadbent, 57, did "so badly" studying for a law degree that he "got the boot" from the University of Melbourne. He began an arts degree at the Australian National University in Canberra but life took a turn in 1969 when he got a holiday job as a newspaper messenger boy. The missives he delivered between the newspaper offices and the parliamentary press gallery on his motorcycle encouraged him to become a journalist. He is now the Victorian state political reporter for the Nine Network, based in Melbourne.

"From day one, when I saw all these people in the gallery and the buzz and the electricity, I knew it was what I wanted to do. I joined the [now defunct] Canberra News in 1970 and started at Channel Nine in 1986. I've got the best front-row seat in town, watching the continuing drama [Broadbent broke the leaked Victorian budget in May this year.] That was a great yarn and a real buzz. For a brief moment, the politicians lost control of the agenda.

I can understand why people dislike journalists when they see what they think is intrusion on grief and privacy and when they see victims pursued as if they were criminals. But so much of the antipathy is simply a misunderstanding of our role. We do bring bad news, we broadcast and publish stuff that inevitably upsets someone somewhere and we make mistakes. Every good journalist is worried about his or her credibility. If nobody believes what you report, you can't provide any sort of service to anybody and you should give the game away.

The relationships between politicians and reporters range from mutual respect to mutual exploitation and mutual contempt, with everyone striving for credibility. The recent John Brogden affair [the NSW Opposition Leader resigned last month after making racist comments and passes at female journalists] is a classic reminder of how complicated those relationships can be. Politicians may never be able to count on reporters as friends but they should know which ones they can trust and which ones honour confidences.

There are good and bad journalists. There are some journalists with glass jaws who can hand it out but not take it. If they are criticised, they squeal ferociously. Every journalist should be interviewed and have their comments broadcast or published so they know what it's like. We forget some people [who encounter the media] aren't media experts.

I face some level of hostility almost every day. There's always somebody who doesn't want you to report something. You expect it when you're doing something intrusive but often people say, 'Oh well, I suppose you're just doing your job.'

When I'm reporting at the odd demonstration, people will shout out something like, 'Oh, the media will misrepresent us.' But I have never felt the cold blast of exclusion from anywhere because I was a journalist. I have been out to dinner when people have said, 'You're only interested in ratings points.' Those generalisations have never upset me."

The Real-estate agent

Architecture beckoned Philip Webb, 52, but his high-school results were never going to get him into the necessary university course. He pragmatically decided the next best thing to designing houses was selling them, which he's been doing in Melbourne for 34 years.

"I got my first job in real estate when I was 18 years old. I liked the idea of being a real-estate salesman because they drove these flash cars. My dad, Don, a farmer, said they got paid a lot and didn't do much and that appealed to me.

I get to meet a lot of people, have my own business and it gets me out circulating.

Real-estate agents' poor public ranking is disappointing and unfair. People have to take into account that selling a house is one of the most stressful times of life and anybody who is associated with it cops some of that stress. I think

in bygone days the industry was much less professional but today there are few professions as regulated and monitored as real estate.

Real-estate agents are pretty hardworking people. Ours is one of the few professions that is ultimately at the public's beck and call. People are often annoyed or upset if they can't get some real-estate agent out late at night or

at 8am on a Saturday but I don't think they have the same expectations of

their dentist or bank manager.

When I tell people what I do for a living, most are very interested in how the market is going, what their house is worth, my opinion on various investments. I've had negative reactions at times but these are fairly rare and it's normally from someone who missed out on a property at auction. Or they had a bad experience selling their home - someone let the cat out during a property inspection, for example."

The Car salesperson

Growing up, Belinda Yabsley, 31, wanted to be a policewoman and a combat pilot. But after she did a 12-month business diploma following high school, she took a receptionist's position at a motor dealership to hone the business skills she'd learned at college. The job led to her becoming a successful Mercedes-Benz saleswoman in Sydney.

"I turned up three and a half hours late to the receptionist interview so I believe the industry chose me. Six months later, the service manager asked me to be his service adviser and I laughed and said I wouldn't even know where to put petrol in a car.

I was trained and spent two years in the service department, then moved into sales. The first lady I sold a car to became such a good friend that last year I was bridesmaid at her wedding.

In my first few years in the industry, people didn't believe I was selling cars. It's more accepted now because more females have entered the automotive industry. When people find out what I do, it opens a can of worms. They start sharing their experiences from five, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

I'd put the low trust level down to the past: the sales consultant prejudging the customer about their ability to buy. There are all sorts of stories I've heard over the years: the wife may have walked onto the showroom floor to look at a car and left the husband and the children in the car park, and the salesperson has said, 'Bring your husband in and let's start talking business,' when it's actually her decision.

It's also about the length of time, if at all, before people are attended to, when they walk into a showroom. It does peeve people if they are standing somewhere for 15, 20, 30 minutes and they see sales consultants standing around in a huddle.

The public ranking upsets me because there are many sales consultants out there who are very professional and they are trying to lift the bar and dispose of the social stigma that is attached to the automotive industry."

The Politician

Kerry Nettle found her way into politics via composting. The 31-year-old was involved in student union politics while studying environmental science at the University of NSW and lobbied the administration to establish a permaculture garden. She was a youth worker in western Sydney and an English teacher in East Timor before becoming a NSW Greens Senator three years ago.

"It's not surprising at all that people don't find politicians trustworthy when you have leaders who are lying to the community about the war in Iraq. I also think pollies' perks and trips overseas and gold travel passes are big issues. It's good that people question parliamentarians. I think people should criticise me, should ask me, 'What are you doing? You're my representative.'

I enjoy my job and it's an incredible privilege to be involved in public debate. Every Australian, apart from the parliamentarians, was locked out of Parliament the day [US President] George W. Bush visited this country. [Nettle and Greens leader Bob Brown controversially confronted him in Federal Parliament in October 2003 over Australians held in Guantanamo Bay.] We had negative emails over that and I had two death threats but, face to face, nothing negative. Some people still come up to me and say, 'Thanks for what you did.'

I've helped achieve changes. All the people I visited at [South Australia's] Baxter Detention Centre a couple of years ago - and who I campaigned for - are out. It's all part of the pressure. A lot of cab drivers are very positive when

I tell them what I do for a living. Particularly those from other parts of the world.

I'm there because I want to change things and part of that is the culture of elitism. Do you know the Jubilee Room in the NSW Parliament? It's almost out of Harry Potter: libraries and steps and pictures of old men all around. We once had a forum there and brought in the kids and had hummus and dip all over the floor. That's the people's house. You've got to take back those spaces and stop people feeling intimidated because it suits the elite and powerful to make you feel you can't go into your Parliament House."

The trustworthiness table

1. Ambulance officers

2. Firefighters

3. Mothers

4. Nurses

5. Pilots

6. Doctors

7. Pharmacists

8. Fathers

9. Police officers

10. Teachers

11. Child-care providers

12. Bus/train drivers

13. Chiropractors

14. Judges

15. Accountants

16. Priests/ministers

17. Domestic cleaners

18. Bartenders

19. Builders

20. Life coaches

21. Taxi drivers

22. Lawyers

23. Stockbrokers

24. CEOs

25. Mortgage brokers

26. Journalists

27. Psychics

28. Real-estate agents

29. Car salespeople

30. PoliticiansThe survey that ranked 30 jobs in order of trust (October 23) was commissioned by Readers Digest.

© 2005 Sun Herald

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