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Australia foreign minister rejects calls for monocultural society

Penny Wong said Australia’s ties with partners in Asia helped secure additional energy supplies this year after the Strait of Hormuz closed.

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Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, attacked the far-right One Nation party’s push for a “monocultural” society, saying the approach would weaken social cohesion and damage relationships with friends and allies abroad, according to SCMP Economy.

Speaking in Sydney on Friday, Wong argued that turning Australians against one another would leave the country more vulnerable to external and internal forces seeking to divide it, while rejecting the premise that Australia was ever “monocultural.”

She cited the idea as a “melancholic fantasy” and said, instead, that multicultural Australia is the only version that has existed, framing the monoculture call as a move toward curtailing choices and cutting off connections at a time of international risk.

Wong also warned that denigrating the region and neglecting partners would not secure Australia’s interests, adding that efforts to build ties with Asia paid off this year when Australia secured additional energy supplies from Singapore, South Korea, and China after the Strait of Hormuz closed.

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