Politics

Apparently Most Australians Think Political Correctness Has Gone Too Far

According to the 'Australia Talks' survey, anyway.

by Rachael Conaghan  19 November 2019
Australia Talks survey

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A national survey has found that Australians want more respect, but less political correctness — in news that is just dripping with irony.

The findings come from a national Australia Talks survey, a poll that asked almost 55,000 Aussies more than 500 questions, to get a snapshot of what the country thinks.

The findings were unveiled on the ABC last night, hosted by Annabel Crabb and Waleed Aly, with some interesting results.

According to the data, 68% of Australians believe political correctness has gone too far. Similarly, 67% also believe accusations of discrimination are used to silence legitimate debate.

However, 93% of Australians believe people should treat each other with more respect.

There’s no doubt that the level of debate in Australia has fallen in recent years. Take your pick; we’ve had Israel Folau preach that the bushfires are as a result of same sex marriage, Kerri-Anne Kennerley say we should use climate change protestors as speed bumps, and Peter Dutton wage scare campaigns against people seeking asylum.

When discussing the deep divisions on some key questions, Annabel questioned whether a settlement could ever be reached on some of Australia’s most divisive issues.

“If you slice these results by age as well, what you see is Australians under the age of 50 … are for change. The people who are going to be around the longest have already started to design the future,” she said.

What United Australia?

In news shocking to no one, 90% of people believe that politicians will lie if the truth will hurt them politically.

Julie Bishop was there to discuss the statement, saying it was a global issue.

“I think there’s a general cynicism and scepticism about people in authority in Australia anyway, but in the case of politicians they do make it hard, particularly when they make promises before and election and don’t keep them after an election,” she said.

“The trouble with populism that we’re seeing around the world is that leaders are coming up with simplistic answers to increasingly complex problems.”

What Divided Australia?

The issue that most divided Australia was, in fact, Australia Day. According to the data, 43% of people agreed that Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26, while 40% disagreed.

“It is interesting though this one, because you are talking about a day that wasn’t actually even celebrated nationally as a public holiday until 1994,” Waleed observed.

“Clearly Australians feel very attached to the date, and you have to wonder why.

“Is this about the day itself, or it is really just a final frontier sort of questions for people who think the debate about the date itself is just political correctness gone too far?”

The second most divisive issue was one of gender, with 45% agreeing there are more than two genders and 38% disagreeing. However, 59% agreed that people should be referred to by whatever gender pronoun they identify with.

“There’s clearly people who don’t believe for themselves that there are more than two genders but who respect other people’s right to identify themselves in whichever way they want,” Annabel said.

Other Key Stats:

  • 84% of people agree that climate change is real and action should be taken, however what action that should be was more divisive. 45% agreed that we will need to change our lifestyles to reduce energy consumption.
  • When asked whether poorer Australians already get enough help from the government, 60% disagreed.
  • Around 31% of Australians say they’re lonely, with those aged between 18 and 24 feeling the loneliest.
  • 75% agree a woman should be able to have an abortion under any circumstances
  • 85% think Indigenous people face discrimination
  • Those aged 18 to 24 and those over 75 are having the least sex out of any age groups