Growing number of Australians are pessimistic about the future, survey finds-Xinhua - 新华网

MELBOURNE, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- A majority of Australians believe that social cohesion is declining and a growing number are pessimistic about the country's future, an annual survey has found.

The 20th annual survey of over 10,000 people conducted by Melbourne-based NGO the Scanlon Foundation found that 62 percent of Australians believe that social cohesion has declined over the last three or four years.

It found that 48 percent of respondents were either pessimistic or very pessimistic about Australia's future, up from 43 percent in 2025, and 32 percent believe their own lives will be worse in the next three or four years compared to 29 percent in 2025 and 16 percent in 2021.

The report said that Australians in 2026 are more likely to be pessimistic about the future, more divided, less trusting of governments and institutions, and more discontent with immigrants and immigration.

"The overriding picture is of a society under stress," it said.

The proportion of survey participants who said the federal government can be trusted to do the right thing for Australians always or most of the time declined from 54 percent in 2020 to 31 percent in 2026, while the proportion who said they almost never trust the government increased from 6 percent to 22 percent in the same period.

Almost 60 percent said that the number of immigrants accepted into Australia is too high, up from a record-low of 24 percent in 2022, and the proportion who agreed that multiculturalism has been good for Australia has fallen from 89 percent in 2023 to 76 percent in 2026.

Across the last three surveys, an average of 46 percent of respondents from South and Central Asia, 35 percent from East Asia and the Pacific, and 30 percent from Africa and the Middle East reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of their skin color, ethnicity, or religion in the prior 12 months.

Among all participants in the 2026 survey, 30 percent said they either went without meals, could not pay their rent or mortgage, could not heat or cool their home, or could not afford medicine or healthcare in the previous 12 months. ■