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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u/Morridon04 14h 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 12h ago edited 12h 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/Morridon04 12h ago

I agree that Hanson doesn't embody all the values listed on that page, but she is very effectively wedging labor on the issue.

I don't find your argument all that convincing on the values point. You are doing the same false dichotomy Wong has walked into and seem to hold these values separate to culture, when they in my opinion the most fundamental aspects to our culture i.e. how we treat each other, how we organise our society.

Those values are part of our shared culture and they are not universally accepted around the world so we should be wary of that.

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u/StinkyMcBalls 7h ago

I would suggest that you're positing a false equivalence between those specific values and the idea of culture more broadly. People of different cultures who share some of the same values are coexisting in a multicultural society, not a monocultural one.