2025 Indigenous Voters Survey

The 2025 Indigenous Voters Survey was designed to address a significant gap in understanding the political perspectives, attitudes, and electoral behaviours of Australia's First Nations peoples. As the first study of its kind, this research sought to amplify Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices within the Australian political landscape by adopting the established framework of the Australian Election Study, ensuring methodological rigour and comparability with broader electoral research.<br><br> The study aimed to develop a comprehensive understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives across several key dimensions of political engagement. Central to this was an examination of electoral participation and campaign engagement, encompassing patterns of enrolment, voting behaviour, satisfaction with the voting process, and the extent to which First Nations voters engaged with election campaigns. The research also sought to assess political knowledge and issue salience within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, including awareness of candidates' social and economic positions, levels of interest in the election, and identification of the issues considered most significant from First Nations perspectives. <br><br> A further objective was to examine Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perceptions of political parties and their leaders, alongside broader evaluations of democratic processes in Australia. This included assessing satisfaction with democracy and levels of trust in political institutions among First Nations peoples. By enabling comparative analysis with non-Indigenous populations through the established Australian Election Study framework, the research aimed to highlight distinctive patterns of political engagement within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Ultimately, the study sought to generate critical insights that could inform government and non-government agencies in understanding the strengths and barriers surrounding electoral participation and representation for Indigenous communities, thereby supporting the development of effective policies to enhance democratic engagement.