Australia undergoing historic decline in support for multiculturalism amid rising fear and pessimism, poll finds

Australians’ insecurities about the world are reflected in the 2026 Lowy Institute poll, as Pauline Hanson backs a ‘monocultural’ Australia and confidence in Donald Trump declines. Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian design/AAP/Shuttershock View image in fullscreen Australians’ insecurities about the world are reflected in the 2026 Lowy Institute poll, as Pauline Hanson backs a ‘monocultural’ Australia and confidence in Donald Trump declines. Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian design/AAP/Shuttershock Australia undergoing historic decline in support for multiculturalism amid rising fear and pessimism, poll finds Share of people who say cultural diversity has been good for the nation plunges from 90% in 2024 to 73% in 2026, Lowy Institute survey finds Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Australia is undergoing a historic decline in support for multiculturalism, according to the Lowy Institute’s annual poll, amid a groundswell of fear rooted in mounting economic pessimism and an increasingly illiberal and chaotic world order. The Lowy poll is the latest edition of the country’s longest-running survey of Australians’ opinions of the world and their place in it, and revealed a record low 31% of the more than 2,000 people surveyed had faith in the United States to act responsibly on the world stage, and just one in five trust the president, Donald Trump, to do the right thing. With trust in China rising from 20% to 28%, Charles Lyons-Jones, a Lowy research fellow, said this year’s survey marks an extraordinary milestone: for the first time “the two superpowers are distrusted in equal measure”. “That is a significant change from 2022 when the gap in trust was over 50% in favour of the US,” Lyons-Jones said. Graph showing the change in Australians’ support for the US and China Underpinning the dramatic decline in Australians’ faith in the US was that only one in five surveyed had confidence in Trump to do the right thing in global affairs – the same level of trust in the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, 53% of those surveyed said they feel “unsafe” or “very unsafe” in the world – a level of safety that is three percentage points below the previous record low set in 2020 at the onset of Covid. “When Australians look at the world today they are deeply unsettled,” Lyons-Jones said. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The survey, which was conducted by the Social Research Centre using a nationally representative sample, also showed six in 10 (59%) are pessimistic about Australia’s economic performance over the coming five years – up 12 percentage points from a year earlier and 22 percentage points since the 2022 poll. The result was also 11 percentage points higher than recorded at the start of the global pandemic in 2020. Graph showing Australians’ increasing gloom about the economy Nearly two-thirds of Australians believe