A new poll conducted for The Australia Institute reveals that more than half of Australian voters believe Donald Trump is a greater threat to global security than Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The YouGov poll of 1502 people found more than more than twice as many (59%) Australians now believe Australia’s interests are better served by a more independent foreign policy rather than a closer alliance with the United States (23%). Just one in eight (13%) Australians believe the US is a “very reliable” security ally.
The poll shows a further erosion of confidence in the US under President Trump. A year ago, a similar poll found that 31% of Australians believed Trump was a greater threat to world peace than Putin (27%) and Xi (27%).
Now, 52% feel that Trump is a bigger threat than Putin (17%) and Xi (16%).
Key findings:
More One Nation voters (35%) believe Trump is a bigger threat to world peace than Putin (18%), and about the same number think Xi is the biggest threat (32%).
One third (33%) of Australians now believe the AUKUS security agreement is not in Australia’s best interests.
68% of Australians, including 53% of One Nation voters, oppose Australia’s involvement in the US and Israel’s war on Iran.
Alternate headline: Australians aren’t delusional and are capable of confronting reality.
Australia and New Zealand should align with Europe. Having lived in both Australia and Europe, Australia is a Commonwealth country that is closer to European values than it is to American. Especially now, with the United States undergoing political and economic collapse.
After Trump is gone, what makes him possible (and inevitable) will remain.
There’s a lot of money behind Trump, and when he is gone, those resources will continue to be put to use.
This is not even a USA problem, if only! it’s international.
The social forces that resulted in the trump presidency won’t go away. He’s not a political aberration. He’s the culmination of decades of grievance, which accelerated after the GFC. He’s the wrong solution of course, much like one nation is the wrong solution to Australia’s problems.
Yes, I think the focus on “Trump’s America” is a bit short-sighted.
Thats not necessarily true.
Its a common pattern of authoritarianism - oligarchs supporting despots in exchange for tax concessions and contracts et cetera.
The system doesn’t readily adjust to the next leader. All that money and support doesn’t necessarily just flow to the next in line. Especially because most despots ensure that there isn’t anyone emerging as a potential replacement.
What can happen, is that people who have been keeping secrets or using their influence in exchange for money or favour stop doing that, and everyone within reach of the top job starts climbing all over everyone else. It could be an absolute bloodbath.
One third (33%) of Australians now believe the AUKUS security agreement is not in Australia’s best interests.
What? Why is that so low? It never was in our best interests! The deal meant the only submarines we were getting were up the arse, but at least we had the privilege of paying billions of dollars for them!
The poll shows a further erosion of confidence in the US under President Trump. A year ago, a similar poll found that 31% of Australians believed Trump was a greater threat to world peace than Putin (27%) and Xi (27%).
That’s gonna annoy the regressive media and warhawks in Canberra. They’ve been trying and trying and trying to stoke China as the Big Bad for ages. The Immediate Threat! Why We Need to Stay With America, Our Strongest, Bestest Ally!
In reality, China is our biggest trading partner (2025 ABS China: $325.8b total trade; Exports $195.6b, Imports $130.2b). They’ll get more from us through business arrangements and trade than any sort of invasion (and it happens to work out pretty well for us, too). Additionally, China hasn’t invaded any western countries … ever!
Ev-er!
I’m not painting them as paragons, but they’re far from the Oh, God Hide Under The Bed Threat to Democracy the western warmongers (whose primary goal is making money from weapons manufacturing/sales) make them out to be.
As someone living in the US I can assure you Trump absolutely is, he is out of his mind and the power structures around him are letting him do basically whatever he wants.
Australia, it’s time to defederate from the US.
They should have polled how many people think Trump is a pedo… That number better be 100%
AUKUS isn’t in our best interest as it involves a very unreliable partner
Interesting numbers on the One Nation voters there, I’d have expected them to be ride or die Trumpers. Good to hear some of them have some comprehension of reality. Some… They were still the highest percentage of responders that supported Trump & the US across all questions.
Seems to be quite consistent with the theory that they are yet to form a reliable voting bloc. The largest, or at least the most vocal, in their confederation seems to be MAGA-influenced racists, but there are all kinds of things that draw people to an anti-establishment protest party which is probably part of the reason they have suffered from infighting in the past.
That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of ON in that way. The supporters may in fact be very splintered in policy and priorities, and just voting ON as the alternative.
Another aspect is that ON is a nebulous party with not much solid in the way of policy in the first place, let alone ideology. It’s clearly syncretic, and I won’t even call it populism because some clearly comes from niche interest groups (SovCit/“Freedom” movement, energy lobby, etc.). Their policy pages on their site have some pages with decent detail while others are the vaguest things I’ve seen from a party, or completely bizarre (like “Aim to slash electricity bills by 20% immediately.” on Reduce Cost of Living).
From an informed voter perspective, I really should go and check out their info.
But…
There’s enough hard-no garbage from that party that there’s no policy that could make me vote for them. So there’s no obligations as far as an informed voting perspective goes.
That said, there were a few interesting policies. It’s easy to stereotype some of these reactionary parties and assume they’ll be 100% wrong about everything - and they are about so much - but some selected counter-examples are:
- their Australian Jobs and Infrastructure section (increase national apprenticeship scheme, opposing casualisation of the workforce)
- the Health section (“In an effort to encourage better regional medical services, One Nation will introduce three-year contracts for newly qualified medical professionals and in return pay their HECS-HELP loans in full.”)
- the Medical Cannabis page (“One Nation remains at the forefront of advocacy within the federal parliament and will continue our push to bring the cost of access down.”), although I suspect they’ll be prohibitionist on non-medicinal drug policy
- “continuing, in principle, the subsidising of the small-scale renewable energy scheme to help more Australian households and small businesses to install solar panels and reduce their electricity costs;”, although followed by some other anti-renewable trash
And you can cherry-pick almost any policy list like that: even the horrific 25-point plan had some decent ones in the middle. I’ll give Palmer a go next time and see if anything floats.
I’d only really give it a squizz if you’re likely to get into a discussion (or argument…) with a ON supporter, it can help you see points of shared interest and build political rapport, and show you’re not some LeFTY LooNIE blindly-oppositional caricature.
