SYDNEY: Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong will defend multiculturalism as "the only Australia that has ever existed" in a speech on Friday (Aug 13) pushing back against the ascendant far-right One Nation party.
The Malaysian-born Wong -- the first Asian-Australian to become a federal minister -- will warn against "external and internal forces" seeking to divide Australia in her address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, highlighting the success of refugees in business and sport.
Half of Australians were born overseas or have a parent who was, census data shows.
"Multicultural Australia is the only Australia that has ever existed," Wong says in an advance copy of her speech seen by AFP.
The "melancholic fantasy of a monoculture" would cause damage to Australia's international security and trade connections, she adds.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation has surged this year to become the country's most popular party, and could gain a kingmaker role at the next election in 2028, according to opinion polls.
Hanson -- long compared to US President Donald Trump or France's Marine Le Pen -- has called for a "monoculture", and said One Nation wants Australia to re-evaluate its ties with international organisations and cut aid.
The senator drew outrage this year for referencing the "White Australia" policy -- which restricted non-white immigration -- in the 1970s.
"Those who seek to divide us for clicks and votes should know that they make us weaker at home and more vulnerable in the world," Wong is expected to say.
Australia and other middle powers are facing difficulty holding their "strategic space" in the world, as "military power, economic coercion, and control of the materials and technologies the world depends on, are used to constrain choices", she will say.
"The call for a monoculture is a call for Australia to curtain our choices and cut off our connections," she adds.
Australia's centre-left Labor government is preparing to announce an immigration policy change, and has said there are "legitimate concerns" about the economy and housing driving the rise in support for the far-right.
"Modern Australia is multicultural," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, referencing his own Italian family name.
Immigration levels are falling from a peak, and would be reduced "without vilifying people, without trying to divide the community, but bringing people together in the national interest", he told reporters. - AFP
