Melbourne is by far the most tolerant major Australian city towards Muslims, with Sydney most likely to be hostile.
Yet across the nation Australians show barely any support for calls from far-right groups to officially discriminate and reject would-be migrants on the basis of religion or ethnicity. 
The results from a sweeping new survey of national attitudes released on Thursday by Monash University also reveal startling findings about the final year of Tony Abbott's government - that stopping the boats saw Australians actually more strongly supportive of multiculturalism.
The survey identified broad support for multiculturalism in mainland capital cities, but with differences most pronounced in sentiment towards Muslims.
Only 16 per cent of Melburnians reported a negative view of Muslims, compared with 27 per cent in Sydney. The findings in Sydney are closely matched in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. Canberra is the only city close to Melbourne with 16.1 per cent negative.
A marked difference also emerges between the cities and country regions, especially in Victoria, where urban people are more likely to have positive attitudes to Muslims.
However, while national security concerns spiked after the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, feelings of prejudice and racism have actually dropped.
The public also firmed in support of government assistance to ethnic minorities to maintain their culture and traditions, a proposition rejected in 2007 by almost two-thirds of Australians.
This is despite Mr Abbott being heavily criticised for divisive debates around Muslim women wearing the burqa or halal food.
But faith in the federal government to "do the right thing by Australians" flat-lined under Mr Abbott, never really recovering from a sharp fall since 2009.
Australians also worried about a growing gap between rich and poor in the Abbott years.
The Monash survey Mapping Social Cohesion - conducted in most years since 2007 to identify long term social trends - contains some warning signs.
People from non-English speaking backgrounds remained twice as likely to report experience of discrimination, and Muslims more than twice as likely as Roman Catholics to feel discriminated against.
Santini Subramaniam, 22, said Australia's identity was "constantly evolving" and that, in her experience, it had embraced different cultures.
Miss Subramaniam migrated from Singapore a decade ago, and while initially feeling she didn't belong, she now attended Anzac day dawn services as well as volunteering at a multicultural youth centre.