Angus Taylor had a couple of political miskicks this week. Then, on the pitch, he also failed to hit the target, for some reason deciding to knee a football instead of kicking it.<\/p>\n
Taylor on Tuesday delivered a word salad on multiculturalism<\/a> and then failed to land a punch on Labor as the government rammed through contentious tax changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the end of the sitting week, the opposition leader tried to kick off an otherwise clever social media video using football metaphors to highlight Liberal policies. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a plan to get Australia back on the front foot,\u201d Taylor says, before somewhat awkwardly dropping a soccer ball on to his knee. Not his foot.<\/p>\n Angus Taylor not kicking a football. Photograph: Instagram @angustaylormp<\/p>\n \u201cSo what?\u201d you might say, \u201cit\u2019s just a fun video amid our shared World Cup fever\u201d.<\/p>\n And the video, which includes the zinger \u201cLabor\u2019s toxic taxes deserve a red card\u201d, was clearly drawing on the Victorian opposition leader Jess Wilson\u2019s Commonwealth Games video<\/a> that was a hit.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n But it comes at the end of a week when politicians were sadly too keen to use the Socceroos as a political football, capped, of course, by Pauline Hanson\u2019s risible claim that the national team was an example of the \u201cmonoculture\u201d<\/a> she has struggled to define.<\/p>\n SBS \u2013 one of the media outlets Hanson wants to abolish \u2013 reports<\/a> the Socceroos\u2019 26-man squad \u201ccomes from at least 15 cultural and ethnic backgrounds\u201d, with six players of African heritage and at least four from refugee backgrounds, including stars Nestory Irankunda and Mohamed Tour\u00e9.<\/p>\n The team released its own video celebrating multiculturalism<\/a> early this month with Mat Leckie declaring: \u201cOur diversity is our strength.\u201d<\/p>\n It begs the obvious question: under One Nation policies restricting immigration and refugees, how many of this Socceroos team would still be on the pitch?<\/p>\n Former Socceroo and SBS commentator Craig Foster said<\/a> this week that \u201cfootball is multicultural\u201d. He called the World Cup team \u201cour national ambassadors of social cohesion\u201d.<\/p>\n Commenting directly on Hanson\u2019s monoculture claims, Foster said<\/a>: \u201cWhat sort of madness is this? The Socceroos have always reflected Australia\u2019s migration story. Australian football and the Socceroos are immensely proud of our multicultural makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n Allow Instagram content?<\/p>\n This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.<\/p>\n \u201cAttempts to reduce the Socceroos to a homogenous, monocultural group are not accurate,\u201d Foster said. \u201cDon\u2019t misappropriate our national team.\u201d<\/p>\n While Hanson\u2019s \u201cmonoculture\u201d dominated much of the political debate this week, some Liberals thought her speech should have been a free kick moment for a Coalition looking to differentiate itself from rightwing rhetoric.<\/p>\n Garth Hamilton, emerging as a chief Liberal critic of Hanson, said the opposition had received \u201ctwo blessings\u201d recently \u2013 a chance to attack Labor\u2019s budget and a \u201chorrible speech\u201d from Hanson.<\/p>\n Some Liberals saw these as the political equivalent of a tap-in goal from five yards with an empty net \u2013 but Taylor tripped over himself. On the day Labor did a deal with the Greens to pass its tax bills, many newspapers and the ABC\u2019s 7.30 led with Taylor\u2019s refusal on five occasions to say whether he backed multiculturalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n