Can Angus Taylor think on his feet? And does Pauline Hanson understand what a monoculture is?
This week, both opposition leaders had to walk back statements they made about the Australian multicultural experiment and how exactly they define it. Hanson’s was a clarification in parliament; Taylor delivered a clean-up job on a friendly Sydney radio station.
Hanson’s partial walkback, which she linked to the Socceroos – absurdly describing the men’s football team as an example of a monoculture because they wore the same shirt and played by the same rules – will likely leave her unscathed.
But Taylor’s clean-up job left him damaged internally, with MPs from the moderate and the conservative factions bemoaning his clumsy non-answers on Tuesday as to whether he supported multiculturalism, followed by his “yes but not Labor’s version” pivot on Wednesday.
It might seem like a culture war distraction driven by “the left”, but it’s not. There’s a reason why the response to the two opposition leaders’ statements is so different.
Hanson, despite the fact that her party is outright first on primary vote in the latest Resolve Political Monitor, is still not viewed by most voters as a realistic prospect to be the next prime minister of Australia. As the Resolve poll shows, few voters think she will actually win the next election, but nominating One Nation as first choice to be the next government is a cost-free transaction right now.
Taylor, unfortunately for him, is being held to a much higher standard even though the Coalition is recording a dire primary vote of just 20 per cent. That’s because he is the leader of a traditional party of government.
So, Hanson is being held to a lower standard than Anthony Albanese or Taylor, the leaders of the two traditional parties of government.
As my colleague Natassia Chrysanthos observed this week, Taylor is being wedged by Labor and One Nation and is failing because he can’t outflank either party. This week it was on whether Australia should be a multicultural society or a monocultural one, but there have been other issues on which the opposition leader has been caught out.
It should not have taken five questions on Tuesday, and then until Wednesday, for Taylor to get his lines right on multiculturalism. And as an Australian-born dual citizen of this nation and Italy, whose family arrived here 100 years ago, in 1926, to establish the Fiat motor company in Australia, I regard his comment about our nation having accepted “magnificent people coming from Italy and Greece” as wearing a bit thin.
No one is debating whether Greeks and Italians have a place in multicultural modern Australia. It’s been five decades or so since olive oil was sold by pharmacies, rather than supermarkets, and in that time Australia has successfully accepted waves of migration from China, Vietnam, South Korea, South-East Asia, parts of Africa, the Middle East and so on.
This mishandling of the multi-versus-monocultural debate has crystallised frustrations within the party that the Liberals under Taylor are polling worse than they had under Sussan Ley. The man drafted in to save the Liberal Party from electoral annihilation is now judged to be doing a worse job than the woman he replaced.
Which is why conversations about the future of Taylor as opposition leader have begun in earnest this week. As one of his Liberal colleagues told me, “I don’t know if he can think on his feet. Why wouldn’t he just say multiculturalism is a great success?
“Every shadow minister went out and endorsed multiculturalism – [Anne] Ruston, [Jane] Hume – and he is on his own. I’d be embarrassed if I were him. Angus’ leadership is failing. We are looking to [Andrew] Hastie for strong leadership, underpinned by a moral compass.
“We haven’t moved to the ‘thinking about getting rid of him phase’ but we will move to it when people start thinking about whether they could lose their seat.”
Hastie, a former SAS officer turned opposition minister, told Coalition colleagues this week he would never “bend the knee to One Nation”. The contrast with Taylor, who offers a blancmange alternative that partially imitates and partially repudiates One Nation, was stark.
Asked if Taylor could be removed as leader by the end of the year, another Liberal MP said, “Maybe, but that would be unfair. We are going through a huge surge in support for One Nation. We were never going to recover in a short period of time. The election has to be proximate. Scrutiny on One Nation is building, but it is not cutting through yet.”
Hanson’s equivocal retreat from her monoculture comments at the National Press Club last week demonstrates that the usual rules of politics apply, even to her. No political leader can afford to insult large cohorts of Australians and expect no consequences. Hence, her bizarre attempt to dress up her remarks in Socceroos’ clothing.
But Taylor’s problems are more immediate and more urgent. It is beginning to look like he is on borrowed time.
Rather than try to find a middle ground between Labor and One Nation, he needs to shut down culture war debates and focus on the main game: the government’s budget and tax changes. The laser-like focus that Tony Abbott, his political mentor, showed as opposition leader is a useful guide.
The Liberal Party has had a proud tradition of welcoming migrants to this nation. It was Sir Robert Menzies who began the work on dismantling the discriminatory White Australia policy, in the 1950s, and that process was continued by his successor, Harold Holt. In 2026, it should not take the leader of their party five questions and 24 hours to figure out that, oh yes, actually, he does support multiculturalism – unless his goal is to lead the Liberal Party to ruin.
James Massola is chief political commentator.
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James Massola is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X or email.From our partners
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