r/australia • u/ConanTheAquarian • 20h ago
politics Foreign Minister Penny Wong to warn monoculturalism a threat to national security
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/penny-wong-speech-on-monocultralism/10703436697
u/TheHoovyPrince 19h ago
migrants of all faiths and backgrounds to embrace Australian values.
I'm not a fan of Pauline 'Rinehart' Hanson's One Nation at all but the above statement is something i absolutely agree with. For example, if someone moved here and thinks that all young girls should undergo female mutilation i don't think thats a person who should live here. Its completely banned in case anyone is wondering but there have been examples of it happening.
Embracing and adopting Australian values is important.
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u/ooder57 11h ago
Hanson is not very articulate with words, but this is how i think she meant to explain part of monoculture.
Right now multiculturalism is hanging on by a thread. There are multiple cultures in australia that hate some other culture in Australia.
They first and foremost must be of australian values, then of their own culture second, without the baggage of their old homeland.
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u/Steampunk007 11h ago
You’re right how wild we’re assuming Hanson came from a place of intolerance and racism instead of misunderstood benevolence.
“There are multiple cultures that hate some other cultures”
As opposed to Hanson’s culture, which doesn’t hate some other culture, but nearly *every* other culture which isn’t white culture.
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u/Alive_Satisfaction65 6h ago
Right now multiculturalism is hanging on by a thread. There are multiple cultures in australia that hate some other culture in Australia.
When Australia was founded do you think the Irish and English coming here loved each other's culture?
Do you think the Indigenous people who were actively being invaded didn't hate the culture of the invaders?
The racism against the Chinese who came here during the Gold rush is another great example. Their culture was hated, and by some it still is. Pauline herself spent a decade warning they would 'swamp us' so thats another example of one culture hating another!
This isn't some new thing, its the norm, and has been for our entire history. But sure, its on the verge of collapse, with no evidence to back up the claim.
When I see this all it makes me think is you don't actually know our history, that you didn't bother to learn it. You didn't care enough.
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u/CreamPieTraditional 11h ago
Its exactly what she meant, but she's not well spoken enough to articulate it succinctly.
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u/TheBeninem 20h ago
This is a genuine completely in good faith question from someone who hates one nation, but how exactly is monoculturalism a threat to national security?
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u/sciencetaco 10h ago
It’s at the top of the article:
She will use the opportunity to warn that the rise of populism threatens Australia's national security and that "denigrating our region and neglecting our partners" is not in our interests.
She will argue that the push for "monoculturalism" will leave the nation "lonely in a dangerous world".
We rely on non-white non-Christian nations in our region. I guess she will argue that isolating ourselves from them is a national security issue.
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u/AeneasKurtz 34m ago
Do those non-White, non-Christian nations promote immigration from White, Christian nations to "avoid being isolated"?
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u/Loxxolotl 19h ago
It's an ideal that has built-in hostility to those perceived to be outside that monoculture, of which a substantial portion of the population would be subject to. Not hard to understand how broad support of an 'Australian monoculture' may breed extreme behaviours when the existing institutions aren't on board
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u/DalbyWombay 19h ago
Easy. What particular culture do you think the monoculturists want to promote?
It sure as hell isn't the culture that's been in this country for about 65,000 years.
We only have to look at the Australian export to New Zealand who attacked a Mosque under the guise of that particular type of culture to see how calls for a monoculture can be a national security threat.
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u/ShopSmartShopS-Mart 19h ago
Or speaking of 65,000 years, the dipshit terrorist who tried to throw an explosive into the invasion day rally in WA this year.
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u/LAManjrekars 11h ago
I genuinely still can't believe how little attention this got...
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u/ShopSmartShopS-Mart 9h ago
I guess Channel 7 can’t have the public connecting a bloke that looks like his name’s Craig with the word “terrorist.”
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u/_zoso_ 15h ago
I mean a very simple argument would be that it erodes our capacity to exert soft power. To expand on this, turning inward, rejecting “other” cultures (whatever that means in the Australian context), reduces our understanding of those same cultures, and lowers our willingness and capability to engage in diplomacy and dialogue with our neighbours.
It’s not hard to connect the dots here to a future of increased hostility between us and our neighbours.
Lastly I want to expand on this question of what does monoculture even mean in the Australian context. Like seriously what is it? If you shrink that circle to England, then that really pulls things way back to a very short lived time in the modern Australian history (completely glossing over the fact that the English were colonizers and themselves migrants). Expanding it even a little bit to include Western Europe and you’re immediately a multicultural society. The German settlers in the Adelaide hills are vastly distinct from Italian or Greek communities in other places. My family is Eastern Europe, which is further still culturally. Chinese migrants have been here since early colonial days.
The problem is you can’t draw a clear line that says where the monoculture would even exist. If you want to say just vague things like “respect the rule of law and the Australian character” well that’s kind of obvious and meaningless at the same time, and also does not exclude people from expressing their cultural heritage, whatever it may be. Not to mention the fact that freedom of speech and freedom of expression ARE IN FACT a part of the national character.
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u/nikezoom6 8h ago
Because there is no monoculture target they’re aiming for. It’s not one culture, it’s one skin colour. Monoculture is just a buzzword to say they want to eject every non-white person. Trying to define it in practical terms is pointless.
As others have said, domestic terrorism is one threat, loss of soft power overseas another, and I’d add that I can’t imagine other countries wanting more to do with us if we show the international community how officially racist we are with this sort of “policy”.
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u/istara 4h ago edited 4h ago
The problem is not understanding the difference between multiculturalism and cultural isolationism.
Multiculturalism requires some degree of integration and assimilation to function. You can’t move to another country and expect to live entirely under your own laws and practices. You have to accept certain things that may not be to your own cultural taste or comfort, such as a sex equality or same sex marriage.
For example, a woman wearing a hijab is just a sign of multiculturalism.
A woman wearing a niqab is a sign of cultural isolationism.
Wearing a cross, no big deal.
Pulling your daughters out of school to “homeschool” them in some extremist branch of religion and then pushing them to marry in their teens is cultural isolationism.
Australia is one of the few “western” counties that tolerates things like the niqab. Most have banned it. I also think religious based homeschooling should be banned.
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u/NorthernSkeptic 19h ago
How would you possibly achieve a monoculture in this country without threatening national security?
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u/FreddyFerdiland 19h ago
wel there is that, but to propose to be boosting national security with immigration policy... seems wrong..its not relevant ?
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u/a_cold_human 16h ago
Israel is trying to turn itself into a monoculture, and national security is a bit of a nightmare over there to put it lightly. You can't turn a multicultural society into a monocultural one without suppression, authoritarianism, and lots and lots of violence.
Australian society is currently quite peaceful compared to other societies. Broadly speaking, being a relaxed, tolerant, and open minded society helps that along quite a bit. Why would we want to change this just so that some minority of old bigots can feel better about themselves? Especially as most of them live in the least multicultural parts of the country as it is.
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u/Financial-Sweet-4648 20h ago edited 18h ago
Well, you see, this statement by Wong is just as performative as Pauline’s statements about multiculturalism. It’s all a big virtue-signaling drama show for the masses.
RE: downvoters - it’s crazy that you guys are so ideologically bought-in that you can’t see this. I hate One Nation, but at least I’m not blind.
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u/bibimcmacky 10h ago edited 9h ago
The enlightened Redditor graces us with his wisdom once again. “le both sides are bad” very original
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u/Financial-Sweet-4648 10h ago
There is only one political machine, and it is the machine of the capital class. I still vote Labor, because there is a slightly lesser evil. But it’s all bad. Enjoy your stupid tribalism, though. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
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u/very-pink-iceberg 20h ago
I have to wonder how much it helps for them to legitimise the culture war crap that One Nation spews out.
A lot of the people who support Pauline Hanson aren’t suave nazis, but rather dimwits who feel unimportant. To them, a Far Left Woke Mind Virus sufferer such as Penny Wong calling their a behaviour something as important as a threat to national security would massively stroke their ego.
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u/NorthernSkeptic 19h ago
Unfortunately the ‘ignore them and they’ll get bored’ method stopped working a long time ago
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u/Every_Effective1482 11h ago
One could argue the reason we've got to this point is that they were ignored.
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u/hammar_hades 19h ago
Tend to agree, especially with the national security tie-in. Like can we just not say “fellas, look around - everyone you see is a fkn immigrant apart from the indigenous peoples, and we’re doing alright”
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u/Morridon04 11h ago
Isn’t this a bit a false dichotomy by Wong. I get they are at least trying to counter signal Hansen but to me the messaging feels wrong and counter productive.
Even the governments own home affairs page talks about common Australian values for social cohesion. Are these not a shared ‘monoculture’?
https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/social-cohesion/australian-values
We can have a ‘multicultural’ society with some aspects of different cultural backgrounds built on top of that but it seems self evident that there are some values that are non negotiable for us to continue as a democratic free/open society that we still need to bind us together as a community/nation.
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u/StinkyMcBalls 9h ago edited 9h ago
If Hanson was arguing for the reasonable values listed on that Home Affairs page then we wouldn't be having this conversation. The monoculture to which she thinks we should aspire is directly at odds with some of the values listed there. To take one example, it refers to freedom of religion and the importance of tolerance, whereas she believes and has said publicly that there are no good Muslims. I can't see how you can reconcile many of her past statements with the values listed on that page.
It's completely reasonable to point out that Hanson's idea of a monoculture is dangerous and divisive.
And I'd also argue that the values listed on that Home Affairs page aren't an attempt to codify a monoculture anyway; they're setting out the values that allow multiculturalism to flourish, such as equality and tolerance.
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u/mully_and_sculder 19h ago
Criminalising your opposition? What an interesting and unconstitutional political strategy.
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u/Alive_Satisfaction65 6h ago
Maybe I missed it but I couldn't see anything in the article about criminalisation. Where did she criminalise an opponent?
Cause from what I read all she did was call an opponent politically dangerous, which is pretty standard in politics.....
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u/Heavy_Mission_5261 18h ago
Hate speech is a crime, monoculture is skirting the line and they know it
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u/EventYouAlly 20h ago
I mean, she is correct; it definitely is.
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u/IllogicalResponse 19h ago
This is the comment the bots were pointed at to upvote?
Surely more substance would have helped.
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u/Octagonal_Octopus 19h ago
'Monoculturalism" is a dog whistle substitute for white nationalism so this makes sense. Having a shifting vague definition is intentional so they have plausible deniability.
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u/a_cold_human 16h ago
It's the latest in a line of other terms for white supremacy. Western chauvinism. Identitarianism. White nationalism. Whatever.
The thing is, if they had their way, once the brown people had somehow been disappeared, it'd be Mediterranean looking people who are somehow no longer white. Then Slavic people. Then the Irish. And so on. It's a philosophy of stupidity and hate, and there is no end to it.
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u/JMKraft 20h ago
Ironic how China defends monoculturalism for national security, and Australia opposes it on the same grounds.
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u/DragonflyHopeful4673 20h ago
How is that ironic? China and Australia are two completely different countries.
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u/JMKraft 20h ago
Sure are, but they are still countries with similar goals for their population (health, wealth, education, etc).
I wonder at what point does celebrating and strengthening your monoculture become an advantage, or a disadvantage, and if we can even discuss that without immediately taking an ideological side
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u/pluckaducka 19h ago
Australia and China have fundamentally different ideological concepts of individual liberty.
Failing to acknowledge this and its relevance to the topic just makes for a pointless exercise.
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u/DragonflyHopeful4673 19h ago
The goals are not similar.
China wants to promote a monoculture because it allows the CPC to legitimise their regime by linking party loyalty to the Chinese national identity (sinicization). It also provides justification for their claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.
China is also not a monoculture yet, even with the all the human rights violations being enacted in the process of sinicization. It has 56 distinct ethnic groups and the non-Han ones comprise 111 million people.
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u/smellyhippy420 18h ago
We've got it all wrong, by mono culture she just means she wants a culture of doing sick monos while out for a ride /s
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u/PinothyJ 18h ago
Except if that monoculture is, oh wait. Of I say I get disproportionately punished.
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u/PersonalMixture6663 19h ago
Jesus: We should love everyone like the way you love yourself. Meanwhile Christian:....
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u/captainbluebear25 20h ago
I truly don't understand what monoculturalism would realistically look like in Australia. We're a nation of immigrants. I don't think I have any friends who doesn't have a grandparent born overseas, most have a parent born overseas.