Less than 40% of Australians are satisfied with how democracy is working in Australia and three-quarters believe politicians enter politics to serve their own interests, the latest Guardian Essential poll has found.
The percentage of Australians who are satisfied with Australia’s democracy – 37% – is an increase from the 32% of people who felt the same way when the question was last asked in March, but well short of the high of 47% recorded in May 2022.
More Australians than not were dissatisfied with how political debate and the federal parliament were working, the poll found, at a time when the government was pushing for the community to unite over a range of issues.
The poll of 1,122 Australians also found 75% of respondents believed politicians enter politics to serve their own interests, while 25% believed they do so to serve the public interest.
As the poll showed deep dissatisfaction with the state of democracy, the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, warned of a growing decay of democratic systems around the world, comparing populism to a “virus”.
O’Neil launched the strengthening Australian democracy report with a speech at the Museum of Modern Democracy on Monday night, cautioning people against taking democracy for granted.
“Many democratic countries are becoming less democratic. Like a virus, populists are replicating at an exponential rate,” O’Neil said.
“New strains of nationalism are emerging around the world. They are personalising political power, strangling free speech, attacking diversity and adopting ‘strongman’ authoritarian measures – all in the name of ‘saving the soul of the nation’.
“It seems like the democratic project is backsliding – not only in newer, less robust democracies but also in democracy’s heartland.”
O’Neil said Australia had a role to play in upholding democratic ideals more widely, arguing it was “strengthened by herd immunity” and that the nation needed “to work together to inoculate democracy against emerging threats”.
“This needs whole-of-society invigoration,” she said. “The project of democratic renewal can’t be led by one person, one taskforce, or one government. It needs the expertise of our communities and businesses, our universities and thinktanks, our charities and philanthropies.
“We can’t let Australia become an island of democracy in a sea of autocracy. We also need to defend democracy on the global stage, while learning from the efforts of like-minded partners.”
But according to the latest Essential poll, O’Neil and the Albanese government need to convince Australians their democracy was working, with just 11% considering themselves very satisfied and 26% satisfied, with 18% dissatisfied and 12% very dissatisfied. The remaining 33% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied or were undecided.
When it came to how people considered the federal parliament to be working, only 29% of people were satisfied compared with 43% who were not.
The numbers were similar when it came to the question of satisfaction around Australia’s political debate, with 25% responding positively while 40% were dissatisfied.
When asked what would be better for the future of Australia’s government, with poll respondents were split on whether a single party having a majority was better than a hung parliament. The poll found 42% agreed it would be better to have a single political party in majority, while 38% opted for a minority government model working with independents on the crossbench. The last 20% were undecided.
The Albanese government is facing electoral challenges on a variety of fronts, with a hung parliament a very real possibility at the next election.
