Essential Report, foreign aid, Government spending, Greens, Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Polling, polls
Q. As far as you know, about how much of the Federal budget is spent on foreign aid?
| Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | |
| Less than 1% | 7% | 8% | 6% | 15% |
| About 1% | 8% | 10% | 8% | 14% |
| About 2% | 17% | 23% | 17% | 12% |
| About 5% | 11% | 8% | 15% | 10% |
| More than 5% | 16% | 16% | 15% | 7% |
| Don’t know | 41% | 35% | 38% | 42% |
27% think Australia spends 5% or more of the Federal Budget on foreign aid – 15% think it is 1% or less. The majority of respondents who gave an answer over-estimated how much Australia spends on foreign aid – the actual figure for the 2011-12 budget was 1.3%.
Essential Report, foreign aid, Government spending, Greens, Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Polling, polls
Q. And do you think Australia spends too much or too little on foreign aid?
| Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | Spend 1% or less | Spend about 2% | Spend 5% or more | Don’t know spend | |
| Spends too much | 42% | 34% | 52% | 25% | 25% | 28% | 66% | 40% |
| Spends too little | 16% | 20% | 11% | 37% | 36% | 25% | 7% | 9% |
| Spends about the right amount | 21% | 27% | 21% | 21% | 30% | 39% | 19% | 13% |
| Don’t know | 21% | 20% | 15% | 16% | 9% | 8% | 8% | 39% |
42% think Australia spends too much on foreign aid, 21% about the right amount and 16% too little. Opinions are strongly related to perceptions of how much is spent. Those who think Australia spends a higher % of the budget are much more likely to think the spend is too much.