Alternative title: Around half of all Australians are brainwashed ghouls 😬
Almost a third supported deporting asylum seekers to their country of origin, regardless of the risk of persecution or violence, while 42% opposed it somewhat or strongly.
The polling also showed voters felt strongly about punitive measures for those in immigration detention, with 50% backing powers to conduct more invasive searches compared with 22% against the measure.
The control group supported offshore detention at 51% while 24% opposed. Support dropped marginally to 49% and 50% after messages against offshore detention, while the group exposed to pro-offshore detention increased to 57% support.
😬😬😬
Not sure how I should feel that the bubble I live in seems far more accepting and empathy towards asylum seekers.
I don’t think the people I live/work/socialise with are particularly extreme… but according to this we’re collectively not representative of wider Australian views.
I choose to believe their sampling was flawed and somehow only sampled the worst of us.
Unfortunately, I have the opposite experience. Living in rural Australia I often come across people who treat any non-white person as “other”.
A good example of this is an ex-coworker who refused to eat Indian food because she’s not a “curry muncher”. I pointed out that she likes butter chicken and that’s curry. She admitted that she did indeed like butter chicken but not curry.
That’s the logic we’re dealing with. It’s hostility driven by a lack of exposure to other cultures and people and the demonisation of those cultures and people in media.
90% of Aussies live in cities with plenty of exposure to other people (source https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/historical-population/2021)
Australia was explicitly white supremist in living memory. Unfortunately a lot of us just fucking suck. Constant media beat ups, cheap tactics by pollies, a machismo that rejects education and empathy, a myopic education curriculum, and an economic system that has us proles climbing over each other for a brief gasp of air takes its toll.