Former prime minister Tony Abbott has declared that multiculturalism has failed in Australia in a new video titled Diversity Is Not Our Strength.
The ex-Liberal leader, who is now party president, said the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack showed that the policy – which is supported by Opposition leader Angus Taylor – has been a failure, but also said that Australia was made stronger by immigrants who “share our values”.
The video was published on social media by former deputy prime minister John Anderson, who wrote in his caption that Australia “urgently needs to rediscover a shared national identity”.
“Plainly, multiculturalism has failed and diversity is not our strength. The Bondi Massacre should be the final wakeup call that we have needed in order to celebrate diversity less and unity more and to resolve to keep Australia Australian,” Mr Abbott said in the video.
“If immigrants share our values and want to join team Australia, our country grows stronger. But if they just want to live in hotel Australia and take advantage of the facilities, our country becomes more fragmented and more divided.
“Now, for many years, migrants to Australia were expected to integrate from day one and to assimilate as soon as possible. Lately though, under the doctrine of multiculturalism, migrants have been encouraged to keep their culture.
“Indeed, the old view that migrants should be grateful for gaining a better life in Australia has become Australians should be grateful that migrants have given us a more diverse society.”
Mr Abbott also said “we rightly want migration that leaves tomorrow’s Australia a recognisable descendant of today’s” and that “people of all faiths and races should be welcome in Australia, provided they accept our democratic beliefs and respect our rights and liberties”.
The video comes amid an ongoing public debate about multiculturalism sparked by One Nation surge in the polls, and leader Pauline Hanson’s declaration that Australia should be monocultural.
After Ms Hanson’s comments, Liberal leader Angus Taylor repeatedly refused to say whether he supported multiculturalism before making a statement saying he supported a version of it where “everyone respects our laws, shares our values and contributes to the fabric of our country” and rejected “Labor’s multiculturalism”.
Later that week he said: “I don’t know what monoculture means. I hear, in the last day or so, it’s something like looking like Japan. I don’t want Australia to look like Japan. I want Australia to look like Australia.”
Leadership aspirant Andrew Hastie then came out and criticised the concept of monoculturalism and called multiculturalism a “loaded term”, while senior Liberals Andrew McLachlan and Ted O’Brien spoke out in support of multicultural “modern Australia”.
Header image: Tony Abbott in the video (John Anderson Media – YouTube).
