[Yahoo] A recent poll shows that nearly half of all Australians want to ban Muslim immigration to their country. Polls conducted by Essential Research found that 49% of Australians supported a ban on Muslim immigration. Among Australians who voted for the country's conservative coalition, the proportion was 60%. The proportion was 40% of the nation's Labor Party voters.
Survey participants cited what they see as the inability of Muslims to integrate into Australian society as their primary reason for voting in favor of a ban, with the threat of terrorism and a perceived lack of shared values as the second and third reasons respectively.
The polls come after the recently elected senator Pauline Hanson gave her first speech to the Australian Senate, during which she said "[Muslims] share a culture and ideology that are incompatible with our own."
"It's too a big a number to say it's an unrepresentative rump that should be shunned from polite society," Essential pollster Peter Lewis said.