2015 Lowy Institute Poll - more Australians worried about safety and prosperity than at any time in the last decade

The 2015 Lowy Institute Poll, released today, has recorded the lowest feelings of safety and lowest level of economic optimism among Australians in its 11-year polling history.

In the single largest fall in economic optimism recorded by the Lowy Institute Poll, only 63% of Australians are optimistic overall about the nation’s ‘economic performance in the world over the next five years’, 23 points lower than the peaks of 86% recorded at the height of the global financial crisis in 2009-10. 

Fewer than one in four Australian adults (24%) feel ‘very safe’ in 2015, the lowest result since polling began in 2005, and 18 points down from the 42% who felt very safe in 2010.

Of eight potential risks to Australia’s security,Australians ranked terrorism-related threats first, second and third:  69% say ‘the emergence of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ is a high risk to Australia’s security in the next ten years.

Most Australians (69%) support Australia’s participation in military action against Islamic State in Iraq, even though a majority (55%) believe that participation increases the risk of terrorism to Australia now, and only 20% think it makes us safer from terrorism in the future.

“Australians’ concerns about security and terrorism appear to be driving a broad acceptance of our involvement in military action against Islamic State in Iraq. That support is remarkable considering that so few think this military action makes Australia safer from terrorism in the future”, said Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.

Risks of conflict in our region rank far lower in Australians’ threat perceptions, with only 20% seeing ‘military conflict between the United States and China in Asia’ as a high risk.

In scoring the Abbott government’s foreign policy performance, Australians give the government its highest marks for ‘responding to the threat of terrorism’ (5.9/10), representing Australia’s interests on the UN Security Council and the G20 (6.0) and for ‘maintaining a strong alliance with the United States’ (7.1). 

But the government receives marginal or failing grades on other key policy areas. It scores 4.9/10 for ‘handling the arrival of asylum seekers by boat’ and 4.9/10 for ‘managing Australia’s economy’.

Australians give the Coalition its poorest mark of4.0/10 for managing climate change. This Poll shows that climate change looms as a rising concern for Australians, recording the third consecutive rise in concern about global warming.

Half of all Australian adults now see global warming as ‘a serious and pressing problem’ warranting action even at significant cost. In the lead-up to the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris, 63% say ‘the Australian Government should commit to significant reductions so that other countries will be encouraged to do the same’. 

Forty three per cent of Australians think solar energy will be our primary source of electricity ten years from now – the highest ranked option of seven possible sources of energy. Coal, ranked next, was selected by only 17%, while 13% say nuclear energy will be our primary electricity source in ten years.

As in previous years, this Poll contains a mixed set of findings on China. Fewer Australians (39% this year, down 9 points) say it’s likely that China will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years, and most Australians (77%) see China as ‘more of an economic partner to Australia’ than a ‘military threat’ (15%).

However, 70% of Australians say the government allows ‘too much’ investment in Australian residential real estate from China, far more than say there is too much investment from the Middle East (50%), Japan (47%), Russia (37%), the United States (34%) and Europe (34%).

“Australians’ views on China are always mixed and this year is no exception: while perceptions of China as a military threat appear to have waned somewhat, this is counterbalanced by a strong opposition to Chinese investment in residential real estate”, said Alex Oliver, Director of the Poll.

In other findings:

• Australians’ feelings towards Indonesia have fallen to their equal lowest point in the past decade of polling. At a cool 46° on the Lowy Institute ‘feelings’ thermometer, Indonesia is now on a par with Russia (45°) and Egypt (48°).
• Only a third (34%) of Australians see Indonesia as a democracy.
• Among ten world leaders, the world leader admired by the largest number of Australians is US President Barack Obama, and the least admired is Russian leader Vladimir Putin (67% ‘don’t admire’ him), followed by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo (29% don’t admire him, and 42% don’t know him).

 The full report is available on the Lowy Institute website, together with the updated 2015 Lowy Institute Poll Interactive – a data visualisation tool exploring key results from 11 years of Lowy Institute polling.

The 2015 Lowy Institute Poll is based on a nationally representative telephone survey of 1200 Australian adults by I-view between 20 February and 8 March 2015, together with four supplementary polls by Newspoll in February, April and May 2015 (each with samples of 1200+ adults). The error margin on a sample of 1200 is approximately +/- 2.8%.