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<\/p>\nOne Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has defended the party\u2019s push for a \u201cmonoculture\u201d, arguing the country can be multi-ethnic and multi-faith while sharing one set of values.<\/p>\n
Mr Joyce said the term \u201cmonoculture\u201d does not mean Australia should be made up only of people from one background, but means one common Australian culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in an Australian culture, that you and I live between those guardrails,\u201d Mr Joyce told Sky News Sunday Agenda,<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re of Vietnamese heritage or Chinese heritage or African heritage, that is not the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re multi-ethnicity, you’re multi-religion, there’s a whole range of that. But to be in Australia, you have to come to the point of an Australian culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments come amid a political fight over One Nation leader Pauline Hanson\u2019s call for Australia to become \u201cmonocultural\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Albanese government has repeatedly criticised the term, saying its use was divisive and incompatible with modern Australia.<\/p>\n
Education Minister Jason Clare questioned what One Nation meant by \u201cmonoculture\u201d, arguing Australia\u2019s diversity was a strength.<\/p>\n
Mr Clare also pushed back against Mr Joyce\u2019s position, saying the former deputy prime minister was a supporter of multiculturalism despite his comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d just ask Barnaby to be true to the person that he really is,\u201d Mr Clare told Sky News Sunday Agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarnaby and I are mates. We\u2019ve known each other for decades. And I know Barnaby is a good man who believes in multiculturalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Mr Joyce rejected that characterisation, saying he did not support multiculturalism and instead wanted a shared Australian culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe in multiculturalism either so let\u2019s be really clear about that,\u201d Mr Joyce said.<\/p>\n
He cited concerns about extremist interpretations of religious or political beliefs, arguing Australia needed to prevent values that were incompatible with Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, in the Quran, certain Surahs, if you have the literal interpretation\u2026 You have a statement that you believe your life is worth more than someone else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have certain licences to do certain things. And of course, that is intolerable and we can’t have that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I might say that a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, especially in the Old Testament, leads to the same outcome. There has to be a temperance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go to other places, especially in Europe, you can see where this has gone right off the rails. We cannot allow that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Joyce said that One Nation was not calling for Islamic immigration to stop, saying in many cases it could work “absolutely perfectly” with Australian culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Clare accused the Coalition, Nationals and One Nation of wanting to be \u201cvanilla\u201d in their approach to culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got three right-wing parties at the moment: the Libs, the Nats, and One Nation \u2014 they’re like the Neapolitan ice cream of Australian politics,\u201d Mr Clare said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is, they all want to be vanilla. That’s the problem here. You know, we are a multicultural country that actually makes us.\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
\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
The Australian Socceroos have become a flashpoint for the monoculture versus multiculture debate, with both sides using the soccer team as a reference point.<\/p>\n
Ms Hanson said the national soccer team was an example of a monoculture, with people from different backgrounds coming together with one goal.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in response said the soccer team was an example of multiculturalism, with people from all different cultures coming together.<\/p>\n
The debate intensified when star palyer Awer Mabil, who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp, criticised the monoculture term.<\/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 he recently 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
In response, Mr Joyce said that the Australian Socceroos were \u201cprobably working within the Australian guardrails\u201d and represented monoculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re multi-ethnicity. I don’t know them that well to say whether they’re multicultural or not. They’re multiethnicity, they have multiple beliefs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey obviously work for a common purpose. They played for Australia. It’s a pretty good indicator that they’re probably working within the Australian guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has defended the party\u2019s push for a \u201cmonoculture\u201d, arguing the country can be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2324,64,8931,63,184645,36974,373849,350598,68825,2322,31479,361523,373850,373851,373847,279607,44,373852,14754,373848],"class_list":["post-794726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-au","tag-auspol","tag-australia","tag-australian-culture","tag-australian-politics","tag-australian-socceroos","tag-awer-mabil","tag-barnaby-joyce","tag-federal-politics","tag-jason-clare","tag-monoculture","tag-monoculture-debate","tag-monoculture-definition","tag-multi-ethnic","tag-multiculture","tag-news","tag-one-nation-mp-barnaby-joyce-defines-monoculture-vision","tag-pauline-hanson","tag-religious-extremism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794726","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=794726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}