Q. If Australia sends asylum seekers to Malaysia, how important are the following issues?
| Very important | Somewhat important | Not very important | Not at all important | Don’t know | |
| There must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment | 58% | 21% | 9% | 9% | 4% |
| There must be safeguards against the development of mental health problems in detention | 41% | 32% | 13% | 9% | 5% |
| The plan should have approval from the United Nations | 37% | 29% | 14% | 15% | 6% |
| All countries involved should be signatories to the United Nations Refugee Convention | 41% | 27% | 13% | 12% | 8% |
| Children arriving in Australia on their own should not be sent to other countries | 36% | 25% | 14% | 12% | 12% |
All issues were considered important by a majority of respondents. The most important issue concerning the proposal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia was that “there must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment” – 58% said this was very important.
There were major differences by gender – in particular on the issues that “there must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment” (very important – men 49%, women 66%) and “There must be safeguards against the development of mental health problems in detention” (very important – men 33%, women 49%)