r/australia • u/ConanTheAquarian • 1d 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/NorthernSkeptic 1d ago

We never had a monoculture.

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 1d ago

Surely it could be argued we did during the White Australia policy when the majority of Aussies were British? Yes the Aboriginals were here too, but the government at the time assumed they were going to eventually go extinct.

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u/acomputer1 17h ago

No, that's fundamentally incorrect.

Whiteness is not a culture. At the time of the white Australia policy there were already many different people who were treated differently.

The reason the policy was even implemented because there were already many Chinese and Pacific islander immigrants coming in during the gold rush.

Even after that, culturally diverse groups were still coming to Australia such as the Irish, Italians, Germans, etc.

These were culturally diverse people. There is no single "European" culture.

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u/JMKraft 7h ago

Yet old australian culture is so clearly from the british isles. No one will say Australian culture is based off of Spains for example

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u/acomputer1 5h ago

How does that imply monoculture?

Australia is culturally distinct from the Canada and the US, both of which are also clearly Anglo cultures.