Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are more dissatisfied with Australian democracy than the rest of Australia.

That's one finding from a poll by Ipsos that sought questions from 131 Indigenous people, with a total of 1244 respondents.

The research has also focused on older Australians and immigrants.

Ipsos was commissioned to do the poll by the University of Canberra's Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis (IGPA) and the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House.

The IGPA designed the Ipsos poll questions and have been looking at the numbers in-depth since then.

“We asked a range of questions where we looked at issues of dissatisfaction with democracy, dissatisfaction with political representatives, but also levels and standards of honesty and integrity both currently and whether they’re improving or declining," Dr Max Halupka, a post-doctoral research fellow with IGPA, told SBS.

According to the online poll, 28 per cent of Indigenous Australians are satisfied with Australian democracy, compared with 41 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians.

Fifty-three per cent of Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians believed the standards of honesty and integrity of elected politicians was declining. However, a slightly higher number of Indigenous Australians - 17 per cent compared with seven per cent of non-Indigenous Australians - believe politicians' integrity is improving.

On the question of whether government is influenced by big interests, 64 per cent of Indigenous Australians said it was entirely or mostly run for big interests as compared with 52 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians.

The dissatisfaction among Indigenous Australians might come down to a perception they are not included in the conversation, human rights and social justice advocate Tom Calma said.

"Things keep getting done for us and to us, but not with us or by us," Professor Calma said.

Prof Calma is a Kungarakan man and was formerly Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

He said the poll's indication of dissatisfaction among Indigenous Australians was indicative of how many people felt about government.

He said the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander National Health Plan was a good example of federal government effectively engaging with Indigenous Australians, but that plan so far hasn't been funded.

For dealing with matters concerning Indigenous Australians, the government relies on their own mechanisms to determine what's best for Indigenous people, Prof Calma said.

Those mechanisms include a key group of Indigenous advisers, but not all of those people had a good understanding off issues affecting Indigenous Australians around the nation, he said.