The Lowy Institute has published its latest annual survey on public attitudes towards foreign affairs, broadly defined. It finds Australians trust their World War II enemies (89% positive for Japan, 83% for Germany) rather a lot more than the allies (31% for the United States, 28% for China and 11% for Russia) to “act responsibly in the world”, excepting in the latter case the United Kingdom (81%). The result for the US is five points down on last year, which was already 15 points below its previous nadir in the last year of the first Trump administration. However, 73% continue to rate the US alliance as very or fairly important, down seven on last year. The result for China marks a recovery from 12% in 2022, but remains far below the 60% it was recording two decades ago. Australians have also gone back to seeing China as more of an economic partner (61%, up from a low of 33% in 2022) than a security threat (36%, down from 63%).
The view that cultural diversity is positive has fallen 20 points over two years to 73%, and a record 55% say Australia has too many immigrants, up two from last year, with “about right” down nine to 29%. Fifty-three per cent report feeling “unsafe in the world”, the first time in the history of a series going back to 2005 this has exceeded 50%. Thirty-nine per cent favour Australia getting a nuclear weapon of one kind or another, up three since the question was last posed in 2022. The survey was conducted from March 2 to 15 by the Social Research Centre, with a sample of 2013.
Separately, an international survey by Pew Research finds 18% of Australians have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, with 82% expressing no confidence. Similar results were recorded in western Europe and south-east Asia, though Britons were a little less unfavourably disposed. Thirty-seven per cent viewed the US as a very or somewhat reliable partner, compared with 79% in 2022.
More Newspoll:
Leader ratings
Albanese satisfaction: 40% (+4)
Albanese dissatisfaction: 57% (–3)
Albanese net approval: –17 (in from –24)
Angus Taylor satisfaction: 31% (–4)
Angus Taylor dissatisfaction: 51% (+6)
Angus Taylor net approval: –20 (out from –10)
Pauline Hanson net approval: –3
Satisfied: 46%
Dissatisfied: 49%
Three-way PM measure
Albanese: 49%
Hanson: 31%
Taylor: 20%
Forced Albanese v Hanson measure
Albanese: 57%
Hanson: 43%
Headline: Labor has retaken the primary vote lead from One Nation, Albanese has recovered some ground personally, and the Coalition has slipped to a new historic low.
Shorten was destroyed by the Trade Union Royal Commission. It was a slow burn, but ultimately he would never recover enough trust, especially in the lead up to an election.
“Boerwarsays:
Sunday, June 28, 2026 at 7:10 pm
I am not sure why people are fingering Hastie as the Great White Hope of the Coalition”
Now THERE’S an image!!
33% is a very healthy primary for the ALP after the so called “budget from hell”.
Six weeks of the media demonising this budget as evil, and the ALP primary is now higher than what it was pre-budget.
“What percentage of Australians, even in rural areas, could name the current leader of the Nats?”
In the current political situation, their current leader is Barnaby Joyce. He might be in a different party but ON is rapidly becoming the Nationals as their member base begins to abandon them for a party that embraces and encourages racism.
Greens like Peg make by far and away the best history teachers.
They know everything.
They forget nothing.
They are always right.
There is nothing more to learn.
Whenever I see ‘monoculture’ for some reason I think ‘manoculture’ – and this is another flaw in Hanson’s schtick.
She has wall-to-wall dodgy men in her coterie, which are not attractive to anyone who looks…
Now, that’s what I like to see!
“ Boerwar says:
Sunday, June 28, 2026 at 7:08 pm
Taylor did two things this week.
The first thing he did was to avoid having an opinion on whether house prices should go up or down.
The second thing he did was to avoid having an opinion on multiculturalism.”
______
I missed those two.
What I did notice is that well done Angus seemed to have spent the week dressing up like The Man from Snowy River whisky sitting on a horse like ‘old spice’ guy demanding an end to the Brumby cull and promising to return management of the high country to ‘locals’ (like his family).
Mind you, its just a couple of individual polls and could all just end up being a dead cat bounce, but still… encouraging stuff.
Asha says:
Sunday, June 28, 2026 at 8:14 pm
Mind you, its just a couple of individual polls and could all just end up being a dead cat bounce, but still… encouraging stuff.
======
* Morgan tomorrow
* YouGov Tues PM,
* Essential Weds AM, &
* Mid Winter Ball Weds evening.
I think a great line of attack against Hanson is to call her the Great Aussie Whinger…. nobody likes a whinger, and that’s all she is.
Imagine instead of Hanson and One nation getting these donations from billionaire Gina Reinhart and co, and it instead was gifted to Albo, Angus Taylor or Larissa Waters.
We would rightly nit hear the end of it.
Hopefully Hanson will get more scrutiny going forward
———-
The Aircraft: A Cirrus SR22 G7 aircraft, which regularly retails for roughly US$1.5 million (A$2.1 million).Donor: Confirmed by a spokesperson from Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting as coming from one of the mining magnate’s firms.Additional Donations: Alongside the plane, Hanson also announced $2 million in cash donations to One Nation, including $500,000 each from former NT Chief Minister Adam Giles and professor Ian Plimer, both of whom are employed by Rinehart.
The most important poll of all.
Dr Bonham..
Kevin Bonham: Newspoll ALP 33 L-NP 17 ON 29 Grn 13 ind/others 8
My conversions ALP vs L-NP 56.3 to ALP (+3.1)
ALP vs ON 54 to ALP (+3.5)
“The Newspoll included a “two prime minister-preferred” measure based on the second preferences of voters who selected Mr Taylor. Under this scenario, Mr Albanese led Senator Hanson by a margin of 57 per cent to 43 per cent. Analysis of demographics revealed how voters would split if they are forced to choose between Mr Albanese and Senator Hanson.
While Coalition voters prefer Senator Hanson, there is a rump of Liberal and Nationals voters who would prefer Mr Albanese (43 per cent) ahead of Senator Hanson (57 per cent).
Unsurprisingly, almost all Greens (94 per cent) and Labor (96 per cent) supporters backed Mr Albanese as their preferred prime minister. Voters from the Others pile, who support independents and minor parties, broke more favourably for Mr Albanese (66 per cent) than Senator Hanson (34 per cent).”
Albo had to deal with a terrorist massacre, Trump’s aggressive tariff attacks, the media’s velvet glove soft touch endorsement + refusal to challenge Pauline on her blatant racism, NDIS blowout, cost of living pressures and the rich influencer, billionaire and mainstream media meltdown over the budget.
The big loser after all this? The Coalition.
The tales of Albo’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. He has, yet again, been underestimated.
Albo has seen off Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, Barnaby Joyce, David Littleproud, Sussssan Ley & Adam Bandt. He currently has Angus Taylor & Matt Canavan in his political sights.
Will the right and the far-left continue to underestimate him?
That Royal Commission was a farce, a fishing expedition long forgotten by 2019. It only reinforced negative sentiment against Shorten and Labor among people who would never vote Labor.
Herd ’em up
Greens in the teens in Newspoll as well, I like to see it
Combined “majors” hits 50 but only because of the climb in the Labor primary offset the fall for the LNP
One Nation still too high
Others -2 gave me a chuckle, even though the 2 who left are still counted in Others
New thread.
These polls will set the agenda for the final sitting week. Opposition can no longer hide behind the lame “the budget is pushing voters towards One Nation” line.
I hope all of you enjoy your Angus Well Done.
A_E
I picked that one up as well. No guts. No gorm.
The body language during QT this week was as if he had no spine… slouching, lounging…
Hume (and other Liberals) shamed him into saying something positive about multiculturalism by wednesday morning, I believe. But by then it was too late. He managed to damage himself coming and going.
I actually find it a bit hard to believe just how bad he is as a LOTO. In recent weeks he has been gifted several easy kicks by Labor. Hanson handed him some easy kicks as well – on paid parental leave and the monoculture stupidity.
And all Angus managed to do was to kick himself in the arse a couple of times.
Wilson keeps having to backtrack on some bigmouth brainfart or another. His histrionics simply don’t fit with the gravitas needed for a Shadow Treasurer. Wilson also keeps leading with his chin and Chalmers and Albanese have been gutting him on a routine basis. Too easy.
Tehan has been doing an OK job as manager of opposition business. They took some skin off Claire O’Neill this week during QT.
…until Dick finally got jack of Tehan abusing standing orders with his POOs. And left Tehan stranded at the Despatch Box while the business of the House surged on around him.
It is as if they all know, in their hearts, that they are totally and royally buggered.
Pegasus -The Adani Convoy was saying one thing and the ALP didn’t have the ability to argue for against it. Hence why the Post election report says there was a problem with messaging around Adani. So it was inferred more than direct.
This, IMO, is one of the biggest dilemmas facing the Australian right in general at the moment.
Their traditional base of wealthy boomers and Gen X-ers who entered the property market decades ago and accumulated at least a few investment properties since, obviously want prices to continue rising. Most Liberal, National, and One Nation MPs feel the same way.
But then there’s the working class voters and the younger cohort of right-wing millenials and zoomers who have been moving One Nation’s way, the ones who blame immigrants for surging house prices and cost-of-living, the ones whose right-wing views are less about economics and more wokeness and cancel culture and trans people and “men not being allowed to be men anymore” and all that. They do want to see house prices fall. Its one of the big reasons that demographic has become increasingly anti-immigration.
Threading the needle between those two groups is going to be one of the biggest challenges facing both the Coalition and One Nation in in the immediate future.
I ran the Newspoll numbers through a simulation, and got the following results:
ALP: 90 seats
PHON: 42 seats
LNP: 7 seats
GRN: 0 seats
KAP: 1 seat
CA: 1 seat
T-IND: 7 seats
IND: 2 seats
Here’s the map:
https://yapms.com/app/aus/house/2025001/blank?m=ldvi24nsaibbzlp
Victoria
That was a very dodgy back of the envelope calculation by Geoffrey Watson SC, who in all aspects of the law and human rights, I have the greatest respect for.
But, his quick back-of-the envelope calculation attributed the circa 2018 (accelerated post-COVID) surge in building material prices to CFMEU corruption.
From the G: “According to ABS engineering construction price data cited by Saul Eslake, construction costs in Victoria rose by 36.8% between 2014 and 2025. However, costs rose higher in New South Wales (37.4%) and across the national average (41.7%). Critics note that if CFMEU corruption uniquely added 15% to Victoria’s bills, Victoria’s cost escalation should logically have outpaced states like NSW and QLD, which it did not.”
It reminds me of a time long ago, in the Blue Mountains, when I was on the board of our local OOSH (out of School Hours) care facility – homework club or whatever.
So, there is me, an accountant and a lawyer. And, we were asked the question: can we afford to stay opening during the next school holidays? To me it was a simple question: What are there fixed stand costs, how many children do we need to cover that, and how many children do we already have signed up?
We had 15 children signed up (when we only needed 12 to cover costs), but the accountant and the lawyer both came up with the number of 30 children needed, which would mean we could not open.
I then said, no, we only need 15 children, and showed them my simple calculation. they looked at each other and said” She’s right, but we do not know why”. So, we opened.
But it was a great eye-opener for me about how people count. Both the lawyer and the accountant, who were actually great guys and good friends, used what was to me a particularly obscure what of counting things, and to this day, I have never understood it.
The accountant seemed to add all sorts of cost up, and then subtract things from it. But what puzzles me to thins day is how they both came up with double the number of children to keep the place open?
Are there some algorithms used by accountants and lawyers than can go horribly wrong?