PUBLIC OPINION AS PARADOX: AUSTRALIAN ATTITUDES TO THE RATE OF IMMIGRATION AND THE RATE OF ASIAN IMMIGRATION, 1984-1990 |
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| Authors: | Goot Murray |
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| Abstract: | Over the last few years, questions in the Australian polls aboutthe rate of immigration and the rate of Asian immigration havegenerated a remarkably wide range of response. While most ofthe polls conducted since 1984 suggest majority opposition tothe rate at which immigrants, including Asian immigrants, havebeen coming to Australia, other polls suggest majority support.Differences between the 1984 poll figures and some of the morerecent polls may reflect changes over time. Other polled differencesalmost certainly reflect differences in the way the questionswere worded. However, the most remarkable if least obvious causeof the difference seems to be the contexts in which the questionswere asked; more precisely, differences in the length and focusof the various questionnaires in which questions on immigrationwere embedded. Public opinion on the rate of immigration isnot only ‘soft’, it is created in the very attemptto measure it. Under these circumstances there is little pointin trying to isolate ‘majority opinion’ or in attemptingto establish which of the polls provides the most accurate reading.Where different readings are a product of differing contextsthey may be best understood in terms of competing conceptionsof what ‘public opinion’ itself is all about. |
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