A New Poll Shows Australians Are More Supportive Of Muslim Migration Than First Thought
The poll rejects the idea that half of all Australians want Muslims banned.
Last month a lot of people (me included) freaked out about a poll showing 49 percent of Australians agreed with Pauline Hanson’s key policy of banning Muslim migration into Australia. The poll attracted international headlines and led Hanson to argue that the real number in support of banning of Muslims was “a lot higher than that”. Apparently Australians were “too scared” to tell the truth in opinion polls.
But a new poll released today shows Australians aren’t quite as terrified of Muslims as we thought. The poll, conducted by Roy Morgan research, shows 58 percent of Australians support Muslim migration and 33 percent are opposed. That’s quite a different result to the first poll conducted by Essential.
Support for Muslim migration has fallen seven percent since last year, according to Morgan. A majority of Coalition, Labor and Greens voters are in favour of Muslim migration but 87 percent of One Nation voters are opposed. Shout out to the remaining 13 percent of One Nation voters who either support Muslim migration or have no view.
They must be voting for Hanson based on her NBN policy.
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Why Are Two Polls Showing Such Different Results?
There are a few different reasons why polls from different research companies come up with different results. Firstly, the questions asked are rarely exactly the same. For example, the earlier Essential poll asked voters whether they support or oppose a ban on Muslim migration. But today’s Morgan poll asked for support or opposition to Muslim migration generally, and didn’t mention a ban.
Different polling methodologies can also throw up different results. Polls that are conducted online have different biases to those conducted on the phone or via text message.
The fact that the two polls have shown quite divergent results suggests that more research into Australians’ attitudes towards migration is probably a good idea. But based on the data that we have, at least one-third of Australians are hostile to Muslim immigration, including an overwhelming majority of One Nation voters.
That’s a statistic that shouldn’t be ignored.