Conservative-leaning One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson has defended her National Press Club speech from last week that rejected multiculturalism in favour of “monoculturalism.”
In a speech to the Australian Senate on June 24, Hanson said it was her intention to spur debate.
“I’m delighted this issue has been publicly examined and debated. It’s a debate many Australians have been itching to have, so I make no apology for raising it,” the senator said.
She pointed to a Daily Telegraph survey of about 11,000 people, which found 56 percent of respondents in support of monoculturalism over multiculturalism (21 percent).
“I’m not the only public figure who has rejected multiculturalism. [Former Prime Minister] John Howard said he always had trouble with it. [Former] UK Prime Minister David Cameron said state multiculturalism had failed. [Former] German Chancellor Angela Merkel said attempts to build a multicultural society in her country had utterly failed,” Hanson said.
The senator also pointed to Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey’s argument that the rights of ethnic minorities would be prioritised over average Australians.
She also accused the far-left of misconstruing her comments and suggesting she would ban foreign foods or that the Australian Socceroo team would not have the talent to compete with Turkey at the World Cup.
Hanson said her vision involved people from different backgrounds in Australia uniting under one flag, and that monoculturalism is “welcoming.”
“If we’re going to accept you, you must accept us too. That’s not too much to ask. It’s the bare minimum we should be demanding,” she said.
“Bring back Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston, these are the essential features of Australian culture.”
The One Nation leader also critiqued Islamic extremism in her speech again, rejecting concepts like Sharia Law, child marriages, and re-iterating her party’s policy to ban the burqa.
Labor Minister Murray Watt said the One Nation leader would struggle to bring the country together.
“It’s all very well to get out there and make a speech about all the people you hate, that’s not going to move the country forward,” he told ABC Radio National.
The President of the Human Rights Commission Hugh de Kretser said it was a speech that “really punched down” on a lot of Australians.
“It was a worrying speech in terms of the division and polarisation that those kinds of attacks and demonisation fosters in Australia at a time when we really need to be strengthening our social fabric and promoting the equality and dignity for all people in our country,” he said.
Hanson’s One Nation has enjoyed a surge of support since late last year, but it was the Bondi Beach terror attacks—that killed 15 people and injured 40—that saw support for the Labor government begin to erode.
Currently, One Nation’s support in the polls surpasses the centre-left Labor government and the centre-right Coalition.
