In a survey covering dozens of hot-button issues put to a representative sample of Australian voters, a desire to rely less on imports and to manufacture more at home stood out as the number one thing most people agreed on.

In the aftermath of Mr Trump's US election victory, where he strongly advocated reviving that nation's manufacturing industry, nearly 83 per cent of surveyed Australian said they strongly agreed (42 per cent) or agreed (40.5 per cent) with the notion we are too reliant on foreign imports. Only 6 per cent disagreed.

Support for an expansion of Australia's manufacturing sector was robust regardless of age, gender, income or locality.

This striking finding comes from the Political Persona Project, one of the most comprehensive attempts ever made to profile different types of Australians based on their lifestyles, social values and politics. Conducted by Fairfax Media in collaboration with the Australian National University and Netherlands-based political research enterprise Kieskompas, the project revealed seven types of Australians, representative of the seven most dominant patterns of thinking in Australian society.

Manufacturing has been in decline since the 1970s when one in four Australian workers were employed in the sector. The downturn has gathered pace in recent years - over 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 2008 and 2015 - and it now accounts for only about one in 13 workers. Last financial year manufacturing generated less than six per cent of Sydney's economic output - about one third of the contribution made by financial services. The decline means Australia is relying more on foreign producers to supply manufactured goods. 

High-income earners, young adults and university graduates were the most likely to disagree with the statement, "We rely too heavily on foreign imports and should manufacture more in Australia." However, even in those groups far higher numbers agreed, with support reaching 69 to 71 per cent.

Opposition to the statement was highest among those earning more than $91,000 a year, with 14 per cent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. This figure dipped slightly, to 13 per cent, among 18 to 24-year-olds and just under 12 per cent for participants with a bachelor degree or higher.

Overall, support for Australian manufacturing increased with age and fell as income rose. It found its strongest support - more than 90 per cent - among Australians aged 65 and older.

People living outside our capital cities were also more likely to support Australian manufacturing, with nearly 90 per cent agreeing, compared with 79 per cent in capital cities.

The results are in keeping with support for local manufacturing revealed in other studies. Almost nine out of 10 respondents rated manufacturing as important or very important to the economy in a poll published last year by The Australia Institute. Almost 80 per cent said the health of manufacturing should be a "national priority."

Economist Saul Eslake said that while a "manufacturing fetishism" was deeply entrenched in the Australian psyche there is no reason to think factory production is more valuable than other forms of economic activity.

"While most Australians appear to believe it would be a good thing if more Australians worked in manufacturing, there doesn't appear to be a strong desire among Australians for their own children to work in factory jobs," he said.

Underpinning the nostalgia for manufacturing was a strong feeling of having been left out of the new economy, said Carol Johnson, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Adelaide.

"For years, both major parties have been assuring the Australian electorate that, basically, we would be able to compete internationally if we opened up our markets, that we would be able to develop high-tech industries," she said.

"Unfortunately, I think many voters feel we've lost a lot of our manufacturing industries where jobs were better paid  … and really, Australia hasn't seen the creation of high-tech industries with similarly high rates of employment and high rates of pay."

She said Donald Trump's strident support for local manufacturing marked a decisive "breakdown in the political consensus" uniting advanced western economies.

"Now the President of the United States is arguing for protectionist policies," she said.

"That's given a lot of encouragement to those forces [with protectionist views] in Australian politics, and we've seen that directly in the statements Hanson's made about Trump."

Many economists oppose government intervention to protect the manufacturing sector and argue it is inevitable for advanced economies like Australia to become more reliant on service industries.

But not all experts agree. Jim Stanford, an economist from the Centre for the Future of Work at The Australia Institute, estimates Australia now has a lower proportion of manufacturing workers than any comparable advanced economy. He says the manufacturing sector remains strategically important and that Australia risks paying a long-term price if the decline continues.

"Manufacturing still matters to the economy and Australians know it," he said.

"The public's gut instinct is absolutely right."

- with Conal Hanna