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.

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.

Link to full report.

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    11 hours ago

    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.

    • Ilandar@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      6·
      11 hours ago

      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.

      • No1@aussie.zoneEnglish
        3·
        7 hours ago

        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.

        • eureka@aussie.zoneEnglish
          3·
          5 hours ago

          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).

          • No1@aussie.zoneEnglish
            2·
            5 hours ago

            From an informed voter perspective, I really should go and check out their info.

            But…

            • eureka@aussie.zoneEnglish
              1·
              2 hours ago

              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.