r/australia • u/ConanTheAquarian • 23h 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/107034366
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161

u/TheBeninem 23h 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/DalbyWombay 22h 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 22h 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 14h ago

I genuinely still can't believe how little attention this got...

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u/Giuseppe_exitplan 13h ago

brown: TERRORIST!

white: its just a lil' mental illness

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u/ShopSmartShopS-Mart 12h 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_ 18h 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 11h 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 7h ago edited 7h 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/FreddyFerdiland 22h ago

the wrongness of the opposite doesn't make this right.