The Essential Report Archive Read the latest report

Racial Discrimination Act

15 Nov 2016

Q. Do you approve or disapprove of the proposal to change the Racial Discrimination Act so that it is no longer unlawful to “offend or insult” someone because of their race or ethnicity? It will still be unlawful to “humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity.

  Total   Vote Labor Vote Lib/Nat Vote Greens Vote other   Sep 2016
Total approve 44%   37% 58% 26% 51%   45%
Total disapprove 33%   40% 23% 62% 31%   35%
Strongly approve 15%   11% 22% 7% 18%   16%
Approve 29%   26% 36% 19% 33%   29%
Disapprove 18%   22% 13% 26% 22%   18%
Strongly disapprove 15%   18% 10% 36% 9%   17%
Don’t know 23%   23% 19% 12% 17%   21%

44% approve of changing the Racial Discrimination Act so that it is no longer unlawful to “offend or insult” someone because of their race or ethnicity and 33% disapprove. 58% of Liberal/National voters approve of changing the Act while 62% of Greens voters disapproved. Labor voters were split 37% approve/40% disapprove.

These results are very similar to those when this question was asked in September.

Error: