Nearly 30 percent of Australians don’t know that Bali is part of Indonesia. But 70 percent knew (or correctly guessed) that Australia is the largest bilateral aid donor to Indonesia.
These are just some of the fascinating findings from a recently released DFAT-commissioned Newspoll report.
The wide ranging survey hits on many parts of the Indonesia-Australia relationship, including aid. Only 18% of Australians surveyed believed that aid to Indonesia should be increased.
The largest proportion (45%) believed that aid to Indonesia was probably at the right level, while 29% believed it should be decreased.
The survey also looked at Australian awareness of poverty levels in Indonesia. Approximately 50% of Indonesians live below the $2 US a day poverty line. One-third (36%) of respondents correctly answered (or guessed) that ‘about half’ of Indonesians live below the poverty line. Twenty-nine percent thought it was less than this and 31% thought it was more.
About 17% of respondents listed ‘poverty’ as one of their top three things that came to mind when they thought of Indonesia.
