  Misalignments between the rotation axis of stars and gas are an indication of
external processes shaping galaxies throughout their evolution. Using
observations of 3068 galaxies from the SAMI Galaxy Survey, we compute global
kinematic position angles for 1445 objects with reliable kinematics and
identify 169 (12%) galaxies which show stellar-gas misalignments. Kinematically
decoupled features are more prevalent in early-type/passive galaxies compared
to late-type/star-forming systems. Star formation is the main source of gas
ionisation in only 22% of misaligned galaxies; 17% are Seyfert objects, while
61% show Low-Ionisation Nuclear Emission-line Region features. We identify the
most probable physical cause of the kinematic decoupling and find that, while
accretion-driven cases are dominant, for up to 8% of our sample, the
misalignment may be tracing outflowing gas. When considering only misalignments
driven by accretion, the acquired gas is feeding active star formation in only
$\sim$1/4 of cases. As a population, misaligned galaxies have higher S\'ersic
indices and lower stellar spin & specific star formation rates than
appropriately matched samples of aligned systems. These results suggest that
both morphology and star formation/gas content are significantly correlated
with the prevalence and timescales of misalignments. Specifically, torques on
misaligned gas discs are smaller for more centrally concentrated galaxies,
while the newly accreted gas feels lower viscous drag forces in more gas-poor
objects. Marginal evidence of star formation not being correlated with
misalignment likelihood for late-type galaxies suggests that such morphologies
in the nearby Universe might be the result of preferentially aligned accretion
at higher redshifts.
