One-fifth of Australians favour a higher migration intake while more than half are happy with the current intake a Newspoll survey has uncovered.
Twenty-two per cent of those surveyed actually wanted to see Australia up their intake of immigrants, with European, African and Asian migrants having the most support from locals.
Twenty-six per cent of participants wanted to see more European migration, while African migration was closely behind, with 20 per cent and Asian migration at 18 per cent support.
In contrast, just 14 per cent of Australians want to see more Muslim migrants, and 37 per cent favour a cut.
Low income earners were most likely to agree that immigration intake was already too high, and 27 per cent of Australians wanted to see the whole program cut.
Although Australians might be increasing their tolerance to migrant intake, many still feel the country isn’t as open-minded as it should be.
One in five people felt that the world ‘racist’ described Australians “a lot”, while two-thirds believed Australians were ‘a little’ racist.
Middle income earners and older Australians were the only group to say they felt Australians were tolerant, while women were more likely to say that Australians were “very racist”
Australia has peacefully absorbed 7.5 million migrants since the end of the last World War, including 800,000 refugees according to the Minister of Social Services.
Source: The Australian