Penny Wong will offer a warning about division during a speech at the Lowy Institute on Friday. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Foreign Minister Penny Wong will deliver the annual Gyngell Lecture at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Friday.
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".
Foreign Minister Penny Wong will use a high-profile speech on Friday to declare that the rise of populism threatens Australia's national security, saying the "melancholic fantasy of monoculture" risks making Australia "lonely in a dangerous world".
Senator Wong will deliver the annual Gyngell Lecture — which is named after the revered policy stalwart Allan Gyngell who died in 2023 — at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
It comes as Labor continues to struggle in the polls, with Pauline Hanson and One Nation remaining politically ascendant, despite increasingly sharp scrutiny from other political parties and the media.
One Nation has vowed to slash foreign aid and withdraw Australia from multilateral institutions if it wins power, while Senator Hanson has taken aim at corruption among Pacific leaders.
Pauline Hanson has called for Australia to become "monocultural". (ABC News: Adam Kennedy )
Senator Wong will not mention the party by name in her speech, but will make multiple clear references to One Nation's core policies, arguing that isolationism will impoverish and isolate Australia.
"Denigrating our region and neglecting our partners is no way to secure Australia's interests," she will say.
"Neither is encouraging some kind of retreat from the world and the institutions that go with it."
This year's Lowy Institute poll shows Australians are increasingly unhappy with migration levels, with 55 per cent saying the total number of migrants coming to Australia is "too high" — as well as a sharp drop in the number of Australians who support cultural diversity.
But 73 per cent of those polled still said they see diversity as "entirely" or "mostly" positive, which Senator Wong will say shows the nation still retains faith in the multiculturalism, even if social cohesion is "under pressure".
Pauline Hanson has called for Australia to reject multiculturalism and be "monocultural". So what does it involve and are there any nations overseas that show what it might look like in Australia?