Liberal leader savages Hanson over monocultural push
A senior Liberal told Pauline Hanson to “go to hell” over her call for a monocultural Australia; Divisions on the right are deepening as the coalition grapples with how to respond to One Nation’s assertion of national identity and multiculturalism.
ACT Liberal leader Mark Parton, whose wife Luisa is Colombian, said Hanson had no right to tell Australians what language they should speak in their own homes.
“What nonsense is this? What is this? I’m married to a beautiful Colombian woman and so mine is a truly bilingual family,” Parton said in a video posted to Instagram, before briefly speaking Spanish.
“He can go to hell, obviously he won’t tell us what language we speak at home.”
Parton’s intervention comes as federal Liberal MPs seek to draw a clearer distinction between the Coalition and One Nation after Opposition Leader Angus Taylor faced criticism for refusing to say whether he supported multiculturalism or Hanson’s call for a “monocultural” Australia.
Taylor later issued a statement supporting multiculturalism, where “everyone respects our laws, shares our values and contributes to the fabric of our country”, and argued that Labor’s approach “holds different people to different standards because of their cultural background”.
While Liberal MPs privately expressed fears about Taylor’s political judgments, some openly supported multiculturalism; South Australian Senator Andrew McLachlan called on Taylor to “embrace the reality of modern Australia” if he wants to lead the nation.
Hanson sparked controversy during a speech at the Australian National Press Club in which he called for Australia to be “monocultural”.
He said one in four Australians speak a language other than English at home, raising the question of how the country can achieve social cohesion if people do not speak the same language.
“Only a fool would ignore the growing language problem as a result of immigration,” he said.
He later said that the Australian men’s national football team, the Socceroos, embodies this vision because players from different backgrounds represent “one nation under one flag” under the same rules.
Parton said One Nation is an “echo chamber of whining and complaints” with no serious policy solutions.
“I am horrified by the debates taking place in this country,” he said in this article. “I want to hear More from Paul Hogans. “I want to see more sensitive Australians speaking out about the gaps in the One Nation story.”
“I can understand the frustrations that have led to the rise of populist parties in many parts of the world, and we have to deal with that. But honestly, if the answer is One Nation, you’re asking the wrong question.”
The Liberals have not held office in the region since 2001.
Parton, a former talkback radio presenter, became the ACT Liberal leader last November and received the second-highest personal votes of any MLA in the 2024 election, behind Labor Premier Andrew Barr.
Liberal frontrunner Andrew Hastie, perhaps Hanson’s most vocal critic within the coalition, said on Monday that multiculturalism had become a “loaded political buzzword” but warned against Hanson’s monocultural style.
“We cannot Balkanize, we cannot divide into tribes… but you know, nostalgia is useless. We are here now. How can we come together, live in peace with our neighbors when we disagree, how can we build our prosperity and security for the future? That is the question,” he said.
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Rob Harris is a national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Canberra. He is a former European correspondent.Connect via email.
