However, when asked about the Senator\u2019s call for there to be \u201cone culture and one culture only\u201d, Mr Abbott backed the One Nation leader\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia has a Celtic culture, we have a foundational Judeo-Christian ethos. That should never change,\u201d the former Liberal prime minister told Sky News host Peta Credlin.<\/p>\n
\u201cMigrants choose Australia precisely because they like what they see and if we change ourselves to suit the migrants, we’re actually letting them down as well as ourselves.”<\/p>\n
The former prime minister went on to claim parts of Australia\u2019s political and media class appeared to be embarrassed by Australian culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the ABC, for instance. The ABC is in favour of every culture except ours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know whether it’s a kind of guilt complex, I don’t know whether it’s kind of politeness on steroids, I don’t know whether it’s cultural Marxism or the influence of, I suppose, ethnic activism, but one way or another, it’s got to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Albanese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/7a24fef7a974be8f07bc31cb5db2d143.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The intervention puts Mr Abbott \u2013 who was recently appointed as president of the Federal Liberal Party \u2013 at odds with the current leaders of both the federal Liberal and National parties.<\/p>\n
In a press conference last week, Liberal leader Angus Taylor hit out at Ms Hanson’s comments, while nonetheless arguing Australia\u2019s immigration system should have a stronger focus on values.<\/p>\n
\u201cI judge people on their character and their conduct. That\u2019s how the Liberal and Nationals approach things,\u201d Mr Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she wants to judge people based on the colour of their skin or their race, One Nation needs to explain that, but our position on this is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Hanson has since attempted to clarify her position, telling Seven\u2019s Sunrise on Tuesday morning she was not expecting people to abandon their heritage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about being united under the one culture and everyone should be treated the same under one law. I\u2019m not saying forget where you came from or your cultural background by no means,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we go to the Olympics, we represent our nation. It\u2019s all under the one flag and it\u2019s the Australian flag. Japan has a monoculture, so what\u2019s wrong with Australia having a monoculture?\u201d<\/p>\n
The One Nation leader went on to say Australia needed to place more emphasis on assimilation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must look at being Australians instead of all these different little individual groups who live in their own cultures, their own laws and beliefs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have come here to be Australian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the clarification, Mr Taylor repeatedly refused to back the calls for a \u201cmonoculture\u201d, telling a journalist they would need to explain what they meant by the term, before declaring he wanted Australians to share \u201ccore Australian values\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe culture I want to see in this country is people in this country who believe in and support Australian values,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve been very clear on this: a commitment to our parliamentary democracy, a commitment to the rule of law, a commitment to our basic freedoms, a commitment to equal respect and dignity of all Australians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what we believe in, that’s what we want to see and that is what we’ve announced for our immigration policy. It must be central to our immigration policy and it must be central to how we think about what is not negotiable for all Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Leftists](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1de4f4f06c6e9a5b63a9f601016aab96.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mr Canavan also criticised Ms Hanson\u2019s calls for a \u201cmonoculture\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t like the word monoculture. I’d never heard of it before, really, until last week,\u201d he told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.<\/p>\n
The Nationals leader noted Ms Hanson had used Japan as an example of what she meant by a monoculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t want Australia to become like Japan\u2026 if that’s what she means by the word monoculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want Australia to be like Australia. We’re not like Japan. They have very strict enforcement of a single culture in Japan. It’s a great country, I love going there, and good luck to the Japanese, but that’s not who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Canavan said Australia did have a form of multiculturalism, although he suggested the term had been hijacked to mean something it was not intended to mean and added it should not override the nation’s \u201ccommon culture\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we should have is a common culture, a common culture that unites us all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do come from different cultural backgrounds, and Pauline herself said that today, so we have a form of multiculturalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I’ve got no problem people celebrating their diverse cultural activities and practices. It’s a wonderful part of our culture, our country.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, I also agree that that word’s been hijacked, unfortunately, by the left, and weaponised to mean something it never was intended (to mean).<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no doubt that the concept of multiculturalism has been abused by activists on the left to seek to erase our common culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what we need to retake and defend. That’s what I support. I don’t want to see our country divided. There are\u2026 more things, in my view, that unite us as Australians than divide us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Abbott has backed Pauline Hanson\u2019s calls for Australia to have a uniform culture despite Coalition leaders rejecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1869,468,22,21,4919,31189,156,2309,2700,31187,5112,1955,2589,31188],"class_list":["post-37121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-albanese","tag-angus-taylor","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-coalition","tag-cutlure","tag-labor","tag-liberal","tag-matt-canavan","tag-monocultural","tag-nationals","tag-one-nation","tag-tony-abbott","tag-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}