Pauline Hanson says Australia cannot be multicultural and must exist as a “monocultural society”. And yet Australia has never been monocultural, except as an unrealised dream.

Multiculturalism means having several cultures, or ethnicities, within a single nation-state. Of course, multiculturalism is only a halfway house. You can also have various language and legal traditions under one government, which it is fair to call pluralism. The United Kingdom, for instance, including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is a pluralist state.

So is Canada. So is Belgium. So is Spain. You could say that pluralism, or certainly multiculturalism, is deeply embedded within Judeo-Christian ways of life. Even Jesus hints at its virtues in the parable of the Good Samaritan!

The British empire was a pluralist arrangement from the 1760s until its demise. There were different languages and legal systems in Quebec (French), in southern Africa (Dutch), and so on. The authorities in England sometimes made a real effort in that way, even amid coercion........

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