Most Australians – about 70 per cent – expressed a “very low” level of Islamophobia, but 10 per cent were highly fearful.
Those are the findings of a from the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding.
People with higher levels of Islamophobia were those who had not completed year 12, older Australians and people who align with the National and Liberal parties.
"Respondents with political affiliations with the Liberal and Country parties have significantly higher levels of Islamophobia than those with political affiliations with the centre-left Labor Party," the report said.
However, the report said Islamophobia was low across Australia.
“There are pockets of prejudice and anxiety directed towards Muslims, for example among the aged and those facing financial insecurity," the report said.
“But the great majority of Australians in all states and regions are comfortable to live alongside Australian Muslims.”
People who have regular contact with Muslims were less likely to be Islamophobic, as were people who had tolerant attitudes towards migrants.
The report groups the respondents on a scale of least Islamophobic (1) to most Islamophobic (5).
The report also said since the distributions for the statistics below were not random, the results were statistically significant.
There were no significant differences between the attitudes of women and men.
Where a respondent lived did not have a significant impact, the researchers said.
The survey had a sample size of 1000, with populations, genders and political affiliations represented in (roughly) representative proportions. However only four per cent of respondents said they were Greens supporters, while opinion polls reflect a voting intention of more than 10 per cent for the Greens.
