136

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks 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.today 6 points 2 weeks 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.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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.zone 3 points 2 weeks 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.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago

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

But......

[-] eureka@aussie.zone 2 points 2 weeks 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.

this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
136 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

5008 readers
180 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS