2014 Lowy Institute Poll finds most Australians comfortable with spying on both adversaries and friends

The tenth annual Lowy Institute Poll, released today, has found that most Australians appear comfortable with their government spying on other countries – even allied countries.

70% of Australian adults think it is acceptable for the Australian Government to spy on the governments of countries with which Australia does not have good relations. The majority of Australians think it is acceptable to spy on China (65% saying this is acceptable), Indonesia (62%) and East Timor (60%), but also on the United States (54%) and even New Zealand (51%).

‘It appears Australians themselves are quite comfortable with their government spying on the governments of other countries – even when those countries are friends or allies’, said Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.

The full report will be available on the Lowy Institute website on Wednesday 4 June at 12.01 a.m., together with the updated 2014 Lowy Institute Poll Interactive – a data visualisation tool exploring key results from 10 years of Lowy Institute polling.

The 2014 Lowy Institute Poll is based on a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,000 Australian adults between 12 and 27 February 2014. An additional 150 adults aged 18-29 years of age were also surveyed on questions about democracy, threats to Australia’s vital interests, climate change and feelings towards other countries. The Poll’s error margin on the 1000 sample is approximately +/- 3.1%.