Poll pans Indonesia, Israel and India

theage.com.au, Michelle Grattan, April 12, 2010

AUSTRALIANS have rated Indonesia, Israel and India least favourably in a poll testing attitudes to 10 countries.

New Zealand, Britain and Germany came out top, with the United States in fourth place in the UMR Research poll. People were asked to say how they felt about countries on a scale, from strongly negative to strongly positive.

Indonesia rated a net minus 38 per cent, followed closely by Israel, on minus 32 per cent. The online polling of 1000 was done at the end of February and start of March - around the time of bad publicity for Israel over the use of Australian passports by suspects in the killing of a Hamas leader.

India, where there has been criticism of Australia over violence towards Indian students here, had a rating of minus 27 per cent. China was on minus one per cent.

The scores for those countries with net positive results were New Zealand (60), Britain (39), Germany (35), the US (18), France (16) and Japan (14).

John Utting, managing director of UMR, said the countries that would be most important to Australia's future - Indonesia, India and China - were among those Australians regarded most poorly.

We were very favourably disposed to countries such as New Zealand and the UK that won't be playing a great role in our future. China's position reflected that we understood its role in our prosperity, Mr Utting said.

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