Foreign affairs minister and first Asian-Australian to serve in federal cabinet to use Lowy Institute address to criticise politicians stoking racial divisions<\/p>\n
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Labor has escalated its pushback on One Nation\u2019s surging political support, with the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, labelling Pauline Hanson\u2019s push for a monoculture a \u201cmelancholic fantasy\u201d that would harm national security.<\/p>\n
Wong, the first Asian-Australian to serve in federal cabinet, will use a major address at The Lowy Institute on Friday to criticise politicians stoking racial divisions, insisting the country\u2019s multicultural success remains a national asset.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe call for a monoculture is a call for Australia to curtail our choices and cut off our connections,\u201d Wong will say, according to a preview of the speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson said in June that Australia must exist as a \u201cmonocultural society\u201d, blaming high levels of overseas migration for a loss of national identity and values. In a speech criticised across the political spectrum, the One Nation leader conceded modern Australia was multiracial, adding that only one \u201ccultural umbrella\u201d should exist.<\/p>\n
In one of the strongest rebuttals yet from Labor, Wong argues Hanson risks damaging the national interest and badly undermining social cohesion.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut well before we could ever realise this melancholic fantasy of monoculture, there is a lot of damage that can be done,\u201d she will say.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Australians would be turned against each other. Australia would be a more hostile place. Harder to be family, harder to be a friend, colleague or neighbour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warning forces within the country and overseas are seeking to divide Australians, Wong warns against politicians seeking to pit different sections of the community against others.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurning Australians against each other is the opposite of patriotism. Our resilience starts with how we choose to live together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wong\u2019s intervention comes as record support for One Nation reshapes the political landscape. In last month\u2019s Guardian Essential poll the party attracted 25% of the primary vote, behind Labor on 31% but ahead of the Coalition\u2019s 22%.<\/p>\n
Her address \u2013 in an annual lecture named for diplomat and intelligence boss Allan Gyngell \u2013 includes a re-ordering of Australia\u2019s foreign policy priorities to put the Indo-Pacific region first.<\/p>\n
In response to a speech by Canada\u2019s prime minister, Mark Carney, in January, in which he lamented the decline of the post second world war, rules-based order and called for middle powers to act together more strategically, Wong says Australia has been at work on the task since Labor\u2019s 2022 election victory.<\/p>\n