Supporters of refugees rally in Canberra. Credit:Jamila Toderas Those living in metropolitan areas are more likely to open their homes to a refugee than those in regional areas and women more likely than men. A bigger share of low-income earners strongly agreed that they would provide short-term accommodation to a refugee than middle and high-income earners. The exclusive poll of 16,554 people across 23 countries for Fairfax by Ipsos Global Advisor asked respondents if they would be willing to offer a spare room to a refugee as a temporary home. Across all nations, 24 per cent said they strongly agreed or tended to agree while 47 per cent said they tended to disagree or strongly disagreed.

In Australia, 19 per cent agreed they would offer a refugee a temporary home if they had a spare room while 56 per cent disagreed. Ipsos director Jessica Elgood said the responses by Australians to the question about opening their homes to a refugee was "not too distant from the global average". The poll also found 26 per cent of Australians agreed "a larger number of refugees" should be allowed to settle here versus 46 per cent who disagreed and 28 per cent who neither agreed nor disagreed or didn't know. Those aged under-35 and the highly educated were most likely to think Australia should lift its refugee intake. Overall, the proportions of Australian voters supporting a larger refugee intake, and the proportion disagreeing with an increase, were both close to the international average. The new poll comes days after the refugee issue burst onto the election campaign agenda when Immigration Minister Peter Dutton hit out at calls to lift Australia's refugee intake.

He said many refugees who settle in Australia are illiterate and would take local jobs while those who couldn't find work would "languish in unemployment queues". The Ipsos survey showed a relatively high proportion of Americans (27 per cent) are willing to offer a spare room to temporarily house a refugee despite the recent controversy over the policies proposed by the Republican Party's presumptive presidential candidate Donald Trump, including a plan to build a wall on the Mexican border and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Ms Elgood said there were a relatively small proportion of respondents willing to offer their homes as a temporary shelter to a refugee in some countries on the front line of the refugee crisis in Europe caused by the influx of Syrians displaced by war. However, Germany's results were close to the global average even though it has absorbed more than a million refugees during the past year. "Despite having taken in so many refugees, Germany is still relatively positive [about hosting refugees] compared with many other western European countries," she said.