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Foreign policy priorities
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.
The public hold mixed views on the question of which partners, regions and forums should be the highest priority for Australia’s foreign policy. Four in ten Australians (43%) say that ‘focusing on Australia’s region, including Asia and the Pacific’ should be the highest priority for the federal government’s foreign policy. A third (33%) prioritise a globalist approach, saying that the government’s highest priority should be ‘focusing on global cooperation through multilateral institutions, including the United Nations’. Only one in five (20%) say Australia’s focus should be on ‘cooperation with Western countries and traditional partners, including the United States’.