The Australian Population Research Institute is an independent research organisationResearch report, 19 February 2025
Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, The divide between the elites and electorate, Australians get ready to vote—Report no. 1
The neoliberal orthodoxy of austerity does not sit well with the electorate, irrespective of their country of birth. Tapri’s survey of December 2024 shows most voters also reject the progressive values agenda associated with it.
Furthermore, big majorities oppose the high levels of immigration prevailing in recent years.Current concerns that Australia is becoming a nation of tribes, intolerant of each other, are baseless. Most overseas-born voters are just as patriotic as their Australian-born counterparts. They do not want more diversity. They value their heritage, but their priority is integration as Australian citizens.
They are uncomfortable with multiculturalism, defined as celebrating Australia as an amalgam of ethnic and indigenous communities. And, like other Australian voters, they want additional migrants to be chosen with an eye to ‘fitting into’ the community.Tapri’s findings show that most migrants, especially those from European and English-speaking-
background migrants, have integrated into Australian society. One measure, used in the Tapri
survey, was the extent to which migrants have a strong sense of belonging to Australia.
Table 19 shows most do have a strong sense of belonging. Indeed, in the case of those born in
Europe and in English-speaking-background countries, they have a stronger sense of belonging
to Australia than do the Australian-born.
And Table 20 shows most of these
voters have had enough of diversity – they want less of it
than more of it.
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