Australia Foreign Minister To Say Far Right Party Weakens Nation

(Bloomberg) — Australia’s foreign minister will attack the policies of the far-right One Nation party, arguing that its call for a monoculture would damage social cohesion at home and relations with friends and allies abroad.

“The call for a monoculture is a call for Australia to curtail our choices and cut off our connections,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong will say in a speech on Friday in Sydney, according to prepared remarks provided to journalists. “At a time where external and internal forces are seeking to divide us, turning Australians against each other makes us more vulnerable.”

Wong doesn’t name Senator Pauline Hanson in the prepared text, though her remarks appear aimed at the One Nation leader, who said in June that Australia was in crisis because of immigration and multicultural policies and called for a “monocultural” society and sharply reduced migration.

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Wong is expected to directly reject the idea that Australia was ever “monocultural.” “Multicultural Australia is the only Australia that has ever existed,” the foreign minister plans to say, echoing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s argument that the country has never been uniform in its makeup.

The call to become a monoculture is “to look inwards, to have no friends to work with, no partners to trade with, no opportunities to grow from. To be lonely in a dangerous world,” Wong will say, according to the text.

“Denigrating our region and neglecting our partners is no way to secure Australia’s interests,” she will say, arguing that efforts to build ties with Asia paid off this year when Australia secured additional energy supplies from Singapore, South Korea, China and others after the Strait of Hormuz closed.

Wong will cite her own experience of moving to Australia from Malaysia, saying that the country is “more prosperous because of our diversity” and has been strengthened and enriched by migrants.

“Our multicultural society, along with our economy and our democratic institutions, are essential elements of our resilience and raise the costs for those who seek to coerce us,” Wong is expected to say. “Those who seek to divide us for clicks and votes should know that they make us weaker at home and more vulnerable in the world.”

One Nation has surged in opinion polls over the past year, equaling the government’s support in the latest Newspoll. If sustained through the next national election, that level of support would mark a major shift in Canberra, where the two main political groupings have alternated in power since World War II.