The New South Wales government has dumped a $2m scheme that was surveying the “wellbeing” of voters, after discovering it had asked thousands of residents if they thought immigrants were taking Australians’ jobs and causing overcrowding.
Complete results were never published from the 10 rounds of Subjective Wellbeing surveys that ran from 2018 to the start of this year under the former state Coalition government.
A spokesperson for the current government said the survey was set up by the regional policy unit within the then Department of Premier and Cabinet to “gain a deeper understanding of how residents across NSW experienced services provided by government”.
Gladys Berejiklian was premier at the time and John Barilaro the deputy premier, leader of the Nationals and minister for regional NSW.
The Labor government dumped the program after it came to power in March, with the current regional NSW minister, Tara Moriarty, demanding the Coalition “explain why [departments] under their watch spent so much money on these surveys”.
The surveys, run by a private company for several departments, were split into three sections including a “special topic”, which included “a small number of questions where we explore topics of interest in greater depth”.
This section changed with each iteration of the survey. On multiple occasions it included questions about immigrants and multiculturalism.
Last June, people were asked if immigration was good for Australia’s economy; if immigration meant there were fewer jobs for Australians; if too many immigrants were not adopting Australian values; and if immigration was causing overcrowding.
Immigration policies are set by the federal government, not state governments.
More than half of respondents to the survey said they believed immigrants were not adopting Australian values – and just under half thought they were creating overcrowding in cities.
Despite that, almost 70% of people said multiculturalism had been good for Australia and 60% said immigration made Australia a better place to live.
Respondents were also asked what they thought of the number of immigrants being accepted into the country. About a third of respondents thought it was too high.
They were also asked if ethnic minorities should be given Australian government assistance to maintain their customs and traditions – with about a quarter of people agreeing.
The majority of each survey focused on satisfaction with state government services, including healthcare, police, domestic violence, infrastructure and mental health.
About 5,000 people were questioned in each round of the survey. Of those, about 3,000 were from cities and the rest were in regional and rural parts of the state.
Moriarty asked her department to stop funding the survey when she was made aware of it after taking office. She redirected $500,000 earmarked for the project into mental health services in the regions.
“Taxpayer money is precious and should be used in the best interest of delivering services for people in regional and rural communities,” she said.
“What were they doing with the content of the 10 surveys since 2018 and why were they never made public?”
The full results of the surveys were never published. A selection of results that did not include the questions on immigrants were published two years ago on the NSW government’s website.
Documents seen by Guardian Australia reveal the government discussed “some sort of public release” for the data in 2021, noting it would be “wellbeing domains only”.
According to the current government’s spokesperson, data collected appeared in budget papers and was “used to support policy development and program delivery”.
Three years after the surveys started, responsibility was transferred to the newly created agency Investment NSW, with funding also coming from the Department of Regional NSW.
Last year, the survey became the joint responsibility of the Regional NSW and customer service departments, and “other agencies have contributed financially from time to time”, the government spokesperson said.
The section of the survey which included questions about immigrants “changed depending on priority areas identified by various government agencies at the time”, according to the government.
“The questions regarding multiculturalism and immigration … sought to measure NSW residents’ experience of inclusion and connection to community, again to assist with the design and implementation of NSW government service delivery,” the spokesperson said.
The opposition did not respond to requests for comment.
