Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood has bluntly warned governments not to undermine public trust by “playing politics with our institutions”.

Delivering the Centre for Public Integrity Oration in Sydney on Wednesday evening, Wood said, “In a world where ‘cut through’ is at a premium, throwing shade on the messenger can be simpler and easier than debating the finer points of the message”.

Wood targeted the recent attack from Western Australian Premier Roger Cook on the Productivity Commission after the PC released a report strongly criticising the current GST distribution that overtly favours WA. Cook denounced the report as coming from “east coast clowns” who did not understand WA.

“My primary concern about comments like these that ‘play the man, not the ball’ is the impact on institutional trust,” Wood said.

“There is an important distinction between arguing an institution ‘got it wrong’ on a particular issue and placing a question in people’s minds about the impartiality and calibre of the organisation and its work more broadly”.

Wood said the PC was “by no means the only institution to have been subject to opportunistic political attacks”.

Climate scientists had “been through the wringer.

"Ongoing disparagement of science or expertise over time erodes trust,” she said.

Wood said that in the United States, acceptance of facts and experts had decayed in recent years.

“It’s nigh on........

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