Welp. In case your faith in the inevitability of just outcomes couldn’t be further shaken, here’s a corker for you: an Essential Research poll released today found that 49 percent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration, as is Pauline Hanson‘s policy.
The figures weren’t consistent by party affiliation – 60 percent of Coalition supporters agree with a ban, compared with 40 percent of Labor voters and 34 percent of Greens voters.
It comes as US president Barack Obama has called upon rich Western nations to repudiate the wave of anti-immigration populism taking hold in the form of ideologues like Donald Trump and Hanson. “This crisis is a test of our common humanity – whether we give in to suspicion and fear and build walls, or whether we see ourselves in another,” he said.
Essential took a typical sample size of more than 1000 for this poll. “It’s too a big a number to say it’s an unrepresentative rump that should be shunned from polite society,” pollster Peter Lewis told Fairfax Media.
These are pretty staggering figures, but probably no surprise to Muslim Australians who cop it constantly from the press, populist pollies like Hanson and even supposedly ‘mainstream’ figures like, say, Sonia Kruger, without being given a moment to provide a counterpoint.
If the poll holds, it’s a marked change from previous polling. Roy Morgan conducted a poll along similar lines last year, and found that 28 percent of Australians were opposed to Muslim immigration – 49 percent is a big leap.
Fucken hell.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald / Essential.
Photo: Getty Images.
