In the first of a two-part series, Robin Brown and Nick Bogiatzis argue that the moral values claimed as Western are common human values – and deeply present in the world’s oldest continuing culture.

Pauline Hanson told the National Press Club recently that Australia must become monocultural. “We cannot be a multicultural society,” she said. “We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.” She pointed to Japan as her model.

This is a call for something that has never existed. As La Trobe University’s Gwenda Tavan observes, even the British settlers who arrived after 1788 were never a monoculture. They were divided by class, ethnicity and religion. An ABS survey published the same week as Hanson’s speech found 75 per cent of Australians accept that multiculturalism is good for society. Most understand instinctively what Hanson does not: you can belong fully to this country and bring your own culture with you.

We need to be clear about what multiculturalism actually is, because it is being deliberately misrepresented. Andrew Hastie MP recently suggested it is the left-wing extreme of a spectrum, with monoculturalism at the right-wing end and some sensible middle ground between them. The true opposite of monoculturalism is not multiculturalism but ghettoisation – the retreat of ethnic, religious or ideological communities into isolated silos, who engage only minimally with the wider society. That happens either by intent or by the exclusionary........

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