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<\/p>\nEducation Minister Jason Clare has accused the \u201cright wing parties\u201d of pushing a \u201cvanilla\u201d political agenda, in response to One Nation calls for a \u201cmonoculture\u201d.<\/p>\n
It comes as the Labor government continues its attack on the Coalition and One Nation over the future of multiculturalism and migration.<\/p>\n
Mr Clare told Sky News Sunday Agenda that the Nationals, Liberals and One Nation wanted to be \u201cvanilla\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got three right-wing parties at the moment: the Libs, the Nats, and One Nation. They’re like the Neapolitan ice cream of Australian politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is, they all want to be vanilla. That’s the problem here, we are a multicultural country. It actually makes us a better country.\u201d<\/p>\n
When questioned whether he was suggesting the parties wanted a \u201cwhite\u201d Australia, Mr Clare said: \u201cI don\u2019t know. You’ve got to ask Barnaby (Joyce)\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pressed again about what he meant by vanilla, Mr Clare said: \u201cPretty much vanilla across the board. When it comes to policies, they’re all the same, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
He was specifically asked if he meant that the conservative parties wanted to reinstate a \u201cwhite Australia\u201d, he said \u201cNo\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Clare said he was referring to similarities in policy positions, including industrial relations, wages, migration and opposition to measures such as free TAFE.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, no. I’m not talking about that. Think about what they want to do in terms of making it easier to sack people, lowering wages,\u201d Mr Clare said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce will talk to you about migration, but they they’re against free TAFE, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to get more tradies to build more things, then things like investing in TAFE is important as well. They’re against that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Clare defended Australia\u2019s multicultural identity, arguing the nation was made up of people from \u201call around the world\u201d with different religions, backgrounds and cultures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a multicultural country, whether you like it or not, made up of people from all around the world, different religions, different backgrounds, different cultures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce told Sunday Agenda that \u201cof course\u201d One Nation did not want only white Anglo-Saxons in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not… I believe in an Australian culture, that you and I live between those guardrails,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you’re of Vietnamese heritage or Chinese heritage or African heritage, that is not the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat if you reside in Australia, there has to be stringent guardrails, because the liberties and the freedoms of other people are determined by your interaction with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you wish to live outside those guardrails, then of course you have effect to other people who are living within it. And we can go through things.\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated multiculturalism at an event in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Addressing a crowd at Marvel Stadium, Mr Modi said Indian Australians had enriched the nation while embracing Australia as their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe Indians are like that\u2026 when sugar is added to milk, it makes the milk much sweeter. The milk is bought from Australia, however the tea is made the Indian way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese also praised Australia\u2019s cultural diversity, telling the crowd that about one million Australians could trace their roots to India.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralians of all backgrounds have been enriched by you bringing your culture here and adding it to our multicultural character,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The comments came amid an ongoing political debate over multiculturalism sparked by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson\u2019s call for Australia to become \u201cmonocultural\u201d.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected that proposal, saying Australia had never been a monocultural nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, under pre-1770 and then 1788, there were many First Nations in this country. And since then, I think our diversity as a nation is a strength,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s who we are, so it\u2019s really a nonsense argument to go back to something that was actually never there.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has argued Australia should instead unite \u201cunder the one culture\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about being united to (be) strong, under the one culture, and everyone should be treated the same under one law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The debate intensified after Socceroos star Awer Mabil, who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp, criticised Ms Hanson\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just all bulls***\u2026\u00a0 If anyone is trying to divide that, then they\u2019re probably not Australian themselves in a sense, respectfully,\u201d Mabil told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen somebody tries to divide people based on certain things, because you don\u2019t pick where you\u2019re born, the colour of your skin.”<\/p>\n
Ms Hanson had previously used the Australian Socceroos as a reference for her idea of monoculturalism \u2013 with diverse people but united by a single culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Minister Jason Clare has accused the \u201cright wing parties\u201d of pushing a \u201cvanilla\u201d political agenda, in response…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,8931,63,36974,68825,27305,373790,31479,1788,373791,44,60504],"class_list":["post-794574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-auspol","tag-australia","tag-australian-politics","tag-barnaby-joyce","tag-coalition","tag-jason-calre","tag-jason-clare","tag-labor","tag-labor-minister-accuses-right-wing-parties-of-chasing-a-vanilla-agenda","tag-news","tag-one-nation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}