The Scanlon Social Cohesion Survey Held at 78 While Its Own Evidence Split in Two

The warning sits near the front of the report, before the tables that would seem to contradict it. National headline measures, the authors write, disguise important dynamics and changes. The Scanlon social cohesion survey then gives the number the headlines carried. The headline number was 78. It has sat there since 2023. The rest of the report is an account of what that disguise hides.

The Scanlon Index of social cohesion is six numbers, not one: five domains and an overall score built from them. Belonging scored 79, worth 75, social inclusion and justice 76, participation 98 and acceptance 60. Belonging rose a point on stronger pride in the Australian way of life and culture, while participation fell three, though the report reads that as fluctuation around a stable level. Acceptance did not move at all, and that stillness is the report’s own example of a disguise. The measure that holds acceptance up, agreement that accepting immigrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger, stayed at 64 per cent, where it was in 2025. It was 78 per cent in 2023. The other diversity measures kept falling. Multiculturalism good for Australia was 76 per cent, down four points in a year and 13 since 2023. Immigrants good for the economy was 73 per cent, down five and 13. Immigrants improving society with new ideas and cultures was 70 per cent, down six and 15.

People did not describe a steady country when the survey asked them directly. Sixty-two per cent said Australia is a little (41 per cent) or a lot (21 per cent) less cohesive than three or four years ago. Forty-eight per cent were pessimistic or very pessimistic about Australia’s future, the highest since the question was first asked in 2017. A third, 32 per cent, expected their own life in Australia to get a little or much worse in three or four years. That was up from 29 per cent in 2025 and under 20 per cent through the 2010s. One Nation supporters were the most pessimistic group in the survey: 54 per cent expected their life to get worse. Trust moved the same way. Twenty-two per cent said the Australian government could almost never be trusted to do the right thing. That was six points more than in 2025 and 16 more than in 2020. Forty-eight per cent said the system of government needs major change or should be replaced, up from 31 per cent in 2020. Agreement that Australia is a land of economic opportunity where hard work brings a better life fell from 63 per cent to 58 per cent in a year.

Forty per cent of adults were dissatisfied with their financial situation, and 11 per cent described themselves as poor or struggling to pay the bills. Thirteen per cent said they had often or sometimes gone without food in the past year. The same share said they often or sometimes could not pay rent or mortgage on time. A fifth had gone without medicines or health care, a similar share could not afford to heat or cool their home, and a fifth had asked friends or family for money. One in six had pawned or sold something. In all, 30 per cent had experienced at least one of going without meals, missing a rent or mortgage payment, going without heat or cooling, or going without medicines or health care. Hardship was not spread evenly. Forty-one per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds had experienced at least one of those hardships. About half of single-parent families had, and about half of renters had, against 16 per cent of people who own their home outright. One respondent in a cutbacks thread, u/Serious_Card_5927, wrote on Reddit on 1 November about a weight-loss medicine started this year. It “had to stop earlier than hoped as the cost was getting too much”, the poster said.

Australians trading cutbacks in their own threads describe the same pressure without the survey’s language. In a thread on rising inflation and rate rises on 28 October, a poster writing as u/cuntassaurusrex wrote: “Already skipping meals and cutting what I can from life. Not sure what else can be done.” The idea of having to sell, the same poster wrote, was becoming “more and more real with every rate rise”. Immigration is not mentioned in any of the three accounts quoted here. In a cutbacks thread on 3 November, u/windfucker365 put a figure on it. “Just in the last three months, our monthly repayments have gone up by nearly AUD 400.” Memberships were cancelled and discounted brands replaced preferred ones. Takeaway was gone except after 11- to 14-hour workdays. There would be no Christmas holiday. “We’re increasingly living like peasants in a wealthy country, just trying to keep our heads above water,” the poster wrote.

Forty-two per cent of Greens voters had experienced financial hardship. So had 35 per cent of One Nation voters, against 24 per cent of Labor voters and 23 per cent of Coalition voters. Financial hardship, as the report defines it, means going without meals or needed health care, missing rent or mortgage payments, or being unable to heat or cool the home. Among people who voted Labor or Coalition at the 2025 federal election, the report estimates that 47 per cent of those experiencing hardship now prefer some other party or candidate. The figure for those reporting no hardship was 36 per cent. The estimate adjusts for age, gender, education, housing tenure, household composition and whether they live in a capital city. Of that group, 28 per cent of those in hardship now prefer One Nation, against 24 per cent of those without hardship. Pooling survey waves together, the authors find that when people become financially stressed they become moderately but significantly less happy, trusting, connected and supportive of multiculturalism. The report’s caution is printed beside the finding: it is difficult to prove hardship is the underlying cause.

Financial stress did not explain the second movement. Figure 31 in the report tests the two movements against each other with a regression. It predicts trust in institutions and support for diversity across the political spectrum, at each level of financial wellbeing. Among people on the political right, predicted trust fell between 2024 and 2026 whether they were under financial stress or not. It fell from a score of 57 to 53 among the least stressed. It fell from 47 to 41 among the most stressed. Hardship, the report says, does not look to be explaining the declining and increasingly polarised trust in government and support for immigrant diversity in 2026. Hardship does not appear to be a strong driver of increasing social and political division in the last year, the summary says. Conservative-minded people expressed weaker trust and weaker support for immigration and diversity. They did so regardless of whether they considered themselves financially struggling or well off. Dr James O’Donnell, the report’s lead author, told the Guardian that people under pressure blame immigration in part, but that he did not see permanence in that blame. The regression estimates adjust for age, gender, education, health, housing, household composition, migrant background, disability, city of residence, survey year and panel.

Four in five people, 80 per cent, agreed they feel a sense of belonging in their neighbourhood. Eighty-one per cent said neighbours are willing to help each other. Seventy-nine per cent said neighbours from different national and ethnic backgrounds get on well together. Sixty-four per cent said their neighbourhood has a strong sense of community. The report notes those figures sit in line with or above their long-term averages, even after falls from pandemic peaks, and that neighbourhood cohesion is reported widely, including by young adults and overseas-born Australians. Among people in severe hardship, five or more hardships counted the report’s way, 53 per cent agreed their neighbours help one another and get along well across backgrounds. That compared with 75 per cent of people reporting no hardships. In the same comparison, 47 per cent of the severe-hardship group had been happy or very happy in the previous year, against 88 per cent. Twenty-six per cent had a great sense of belonging in Australia, against 52 per cent. Almost half of women, 47 per cent, and a quarter of men, 25 per cent, said they felt at least a bit unsafe walking alone at night in their local area.

Fifty-nine per cent of adults said immigration is too high. That is the highest proportion in the survey’s history. It was 52 per cent in 2025 and 24 per cent in 2022, the lowest point in the survey’s history. The division by vote was wide: 93 per cent of One Nation supporters, 66 per cent of Coalition supporters, 37 per cent of Labor supporters and 24 per cent of Greens supporters. The proportions had been stable among Labor and Greens supporters since 2024, and risen among Coalition and One Nation supporters. Most people still separated that view from immigrants themselves. Eighty-seven per cent agreed immigrants are just as likely to be good citizens as the Australian-born. Seventy-six per cent agreed multiculturalism has been good for Australia, and 73 per cent agreed immigrants are generally good for the economy. Those proportions have fallen over the past two to three years, the report says, driven specifically by One Nation supporters. Among them, agreement that multiculturalism has been good for Australia fell from 63 per cent to 44 per cent between 2024 and 2026. Agreement that immigrants make good citizens fell from 84 per cent to 76 per cent.

British immigrants were the most positively viewed group in the survey. Muslims and immigrants from Africa and the Middle East faced the most widespread negative attitudes, and the gap between the most and least favourably viewed communities widened. In 2026, 43 per cent reported a negative attitude towards Muslim people, up from 29 per cent in 2022. Eighteen per cent reported one towards Jewish people, up from 13 per cent in 2024. Negative attitudes towards Hindu people reached 17 per cent and towards Sikhs 20 per cent, while negativity towards Christians fell to 13 per cent. The report adds two cautions of its own. The questions record attitudes people are willing to admit to. They are not direct measures of Islamophobia, antisemitism or racism, and they do not equate to the lived experience of affected communities. And neutral was the most common answer for almost every group, which the report reads as uncertainty in some cases and as a form of acceptance in others.

Three groups entered the survey’s list for the first time in 2026. No prior data exists for them. Asked whether their feelings were positive, negative or neutral towards immigrants from Israel, Iran and Palestine, respondents gave negative answers of 36, 41 and 39 per cent. The full splits show how much of each total sits in the middle. For Israel: 16 per cent very negative and 20 per cent somewhat negative, with 42 per cent neutral. For Iran and Palestine the pattern was close: 18 and 23 per cent negative and 41 per cent neutral for Iran, 18 and 21 per cent negative and 41 per cent neutral for Palestine. Negative views were about twice the positive views for each of the three. A separate question asked where sympathy lay in the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. Seventeen per cent said mostly or entirely with the Israeli people, 35 per cent with the Palestinian people, 19 per cent with both equally and 28 per cent with neither. Sympathy with the Israeli people reached 38 per cent among people who placed themselves on the political right and 33 per cent among people aged 65 and over. Sympathy with the Palestinian people reached 67 per cent on the left and 49 per cent among 18- to 34-year-olds.

The survey was carried out in June and July 2026 with more than 10,000 Australian adults, alongside 47 longer qualitative interviews. The sample blended 7,300 respondents from the Social Research Centre’s Life in Australia panel with respondents from a second panel in groups boosted around voting in the 2025 federal election. A further 250 respondents answered a shorter survey in one of four languages. Ninety-nine per cent answered online. Results were weighted so the survey’s demographic profile matches population benchmarks. The margins of error are published in the companion Technical Report.