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Community attitudes to gene technology Final Report 2015
There has been a drop in both awareness and support for gene technologies in Australia since 2012, with mean levels of support dropping from 6.07 out of ten to 5.33. As in previous studies it appears that people with less knowledge of gene technology are less likely to support it.
While there were more people in support of GMOs generally than were opposed to it, this changed with the applications of the technology. Support was much greater when the applications were for medical uses (such as producing insulin or vaccines), for industrial uses (such as making biofuels or plastic replacement parts from plants) and for other uses (such as modifying microbes to clean up the environment). Using gene technology in food and crops had far less support than the other applications. Going against this trend however were respondents from SA who were more likely to indicate support for gene technology for use in foods and crops than for other uses.