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Troops in Afghanistan

10 Sep 2012

Q. Thinking about the Australian troops in Afghanistan, do you think Australia should –

 

21 Jun 2010

9 May 2011

21 Nov 2011

19 Mar 2012

This week  10 Sept 2012

Vote Labor

Vote Lib/Nat

Vote Greens

Increase the number of troops in Afghanistan

7%

6%

3%

4%

4%

5%

6%

3%

Keep the same number of troops in Afghanistan

24%

36%

22%

22%

23%

23%

27%

20%

Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan

61%

48%

64%

64%

62%

60%

58%

65%

Don’t know

8%

11%

11%

10%

11%

12%

9%

12%

There is little change in respondents’ positions on troops in Afghanistan. Compared to the last time the question was polled six months ago in March 2012, 4% still believe that we should increase the number of troops. Belief that we should maintain the same number of troops increased 1% to 23% and belief that we should withdraw troops fell just 2 points from 64% in March 2012 to 62%.

Looking at the results by voting intention, Coalition voters were the most in favour of maintaining troop numbers (27%) compared to Labor voters (23%) and Greens voters (20%).   Greens voters were the most likely to want to withdraw troops from Afghanistan (65%) when compared with Labor voters (60%) and Coalition voters (58%).

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