Indonesia, Israel and India rated least favourable by Australians

Melbourne, Apr 12 (ANI): Australians have rated Indonesia, Israel and India as least favourable in a poll testing attitudes of 10 countries.

Australians rated New Zealand, Britain and Germany as top three countries, 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, The Age reports.

Indonesia rated a net minus 38 per cent, followed closely by Israel, on minus 32 per cent.

Suspects in the killing of a Hamas leader did the online polling of 1000 at the end of February and at the start of March around the time of bad publicity for Israel over the use of Australian passports.

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," Utting said. (ANI)