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Threats to Australia’s vital interestsThreats to Australia’s vital interests
About the author
Natasha Kassam
Natasha Kassam was Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program from 2019 to 2022, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations.
Concern about non-traditional security threats appears to have eclipsed that of traditional security threats for Australians in 2020. Covid-19 and ‘drought and water shortages’ are seen as the top Threats to Australia’s vital interests in the next ten years. Three-quarters say ‘novel coronavirus (Covid-19) and other potential epidemics’ (76%) and ‘drought and water shortages’ (77%) pose critical Threats to Australia’s vital interests. In 2008, only 47% of Australians saw ‘AIDS, avian flu and other potential epidemics’ as a critical threat.
With a global recession looming in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, concern about the economy has risen sharply. In 2020, 71% say that ‘a severe downturn in the global economy’ is a critical threat, a 20-point increase from 2019. This aligns with unprecedented low levels of optimism about Australia’s economic performance.
Along with the threat of drought, most Australians say ‘environmental disasters such as bushfires and floods’ (67%) and ‘climate change’ (59%) both pose critical threats. As in past years, a significant gap exists between younger and older Australians’ views of climate change as a critical threat. Seven in ten Australians aged 18‒44 (70%) say climate change is a critical threat, compared with 49% of those over 45. Similarly, 76% of aged 18‒44 Australians see ‘environmental disasters such as bushfires and floods’ as a critical threat, compared with 59% of Australians aged 45 and over.
After a spike in concern about foreign interference in 2019, coinciding with a federal election year in Australia, 42% now say ‘foreign interference in Australian politics’ is a critical threat, a seven-point drop from 2019. Concern about the dissemination of false information and fake news has not shifted from 2018, with 44% saying this poses a critical threat. Only four in ten Australians (41%) say ‘the rise of authoritarian systems of government around the world’ is a critical threat.
Despite highly publicised terrorist attacks in 2019 in New Zealand, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, only 46% say international terrorism poses a critical threat, down 15 points from 2019. A third of Australians (37%) say Iran’s nuclear program is a critical threat, a 16-point decline from 2014. A similar number (35%) see ‘a military conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan’ as a critical threat to Australia’s interests.
