Politicians say immigration threatens ‘Australian values’, but our research shows no one knows exactly what that means

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and new Liberal leader Angus Taylor have invoked “Australian values” to justify taking a hard line on immigration, especially from countries that supposedly don’t share our values.

The phrase summons comforting and nostalgic images of football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars, but politicians are rarely asked to spell out what our national values actually are.

When they do, they are often talking about different things.

So, what exactly do Australians “value”? And do these values line up with what politicians are saying about migration?

A ‘fair go’

One frequently invoked idea in the context of Australian values is a “fair go”.

It’s an official part of our immigration system. The Australian Values Statement, which all visa applicants must sign and agree to abide by, includes an explicit mention of “a fair go for all”.

Our research on this longstanding national ideal shows people attach many different meanings to it.

Most people thought it included the belief that migrants should have the same opportunities as everyone else.

What did we find?

In 2024–25 we ran a module in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to ask the public what they thought a “fair go” meant.

Respondents were presented with a range of statements about a “fair go” and asked to give a score between one and seven according to how much they agreed, with one being the lowest and seven the highest.

The table reveals widespread agreement that a “fair go” is about people being able to get ahead without facing discrimination, with a common view that all should have access to the same quality of education and healthcare.

Fewer people agreed a fair go was about the redistribution of wealth and income, or people being free to “do what they want”.

Instead, the idea of reward for effort was strongly associated with the fair go.

Importantly for the present debate about immigration, 52% of people gave the highest possible level of agreement that recent migrants should have the same opportunity as everyone else to get ahead in life. Only 7% actively disagreed.

The sentiment towards immigration

We were also interested in how these beliefs coalesced together, and how they related to attitudes toward migrants as people, and toward levels of immigration.

We found that fair-go beliefs fell into two main clusters: an “egalitarian” group that embraced the anti-discriminatory aspects of equal opportunity most strongly, and a “meritocratic” group that favoured ideas of striving and reward for effort.

Those in the first cluster were generally positive both toward migrants as people and toward immigration in general. Those with the second set of beliefs were also somewhat positively aligned toward people of migrant backgrounds, though less supportive of increased immigration.

Of course, not everyone has positive feelings about migrants.

In the survey, around 28% of people thought people born in Australia should be given preference over others, and on levels of migration, people were divided. While 43% thought current levels should remain the same or rise, nearly 47% thought they should be lowered.

These results show the fair go is a collection of disparate beliefs, reflecting underlying ideological and partisan differences in our country.

Australian culture and values blend ideas of equality of opportunity, equitable access to education and health, safety nets for the disadvantaged, and an emphasis on reward for effort.

Australians don’t all sing from the same hymn sheet on migration. But they are also mostly strongly in favour of the view that our core national value requires us to treat new migrants as equals.

Beyond the difficulty of defining Australia’s national values lies the further challenge of deciding which source countries supposedly share them.

This has become a theme in current debates, where certain countries, especially non-European ones, are portrayed as fundamentally misaligned with Australian values.

The assumption that Australian values are coherent is flawed, and the same flawed assumption is often projected onto other countries.

The tension between values and politics

We also interviewed current and former politicians across the political spectrum.

While all endorsed the importance of the fair go, they differed in how widely they believed this value was shared.

Many politicians from the Labor Party argued their party was the true champion of the fair go, and spoke of conservative efforts to undermine it.

Unsurprisingly, the Greens and One Nation attached very different policy meanings to the phrase, particularly on issues such as migration and same-sex rights.

Politicians inevitably invoke cultural idioms such as the fair go for their own strategic purposes, and these divergent interpretations reinforce how difficult it is to find common ground on what constitutes Australian values.

While our results show support for migration, they also sound a warning. We asked if the fair go was alive and well today and only 40% answered positively.

On the possibility of people in the future getting more of a fair go than they do today, only 19% agreed.

Instead of invoking Australian values to justify exclusion, our leaders need to build on values we genuinely share, including a fair go for migrants, and make the fair go something people can see and experience in their daily lives.

Pandanus Petter receives funding from the Australian Research Council to study Australian values, public opinion and government responsiveness.

Cosmo Howard received funding from the Australian Research Council for this project, Grant number DP220101911.

Juliet Pietsch receives funding from the Australian Research Council for this project, Grant number DP220101911