Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has labelled One Nation’s call for a monocultural Australia “un-Australian”, as the party pushes to register in Tasmania and rides a surge in national polling.
Rockliff was asked on Sunday whether his government felt threatened by One Nation, which is working towards official registration in the state.
One Nation national executive member Lee Hanson said the party had recently lodged the 100 signed member declarations required under Tasmanian law.
Hanson, the daughter of party founder and senator Pauline Hanson, said members were now recruiting a state executive team, including a president, treasurer and secretary.
The party could be registered by the end of August, she said.
Rockliff said One Nation’s immigration stance was “scary”.
“I don’t want to see a Hanson monoculture destroy the very fabric that Tasmania has been built on for generations,” he said.
“What I really worry about is if One Nation has influence on government, then Australia will lose its fair go, its sense of a fair go.”
His comments followed Senator Hanson’s National Press Club address in Canberra on June 17.
“We cannot be a multicultural society,” Senator Hanson said.
“We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural.”
She made the comments as part of a broader argument that immigration had placed Australia in crisis.
A Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, conducted in early June, put One Nation on 29% of the primary vote, ahead of Labor on 28% and the Coalition on 20%.
Rockliff said Tasmania’s economy had long benefited from migration, including through the construction of the state’s hydro dams and renewable energy capacity.
“Tasmania does better when we welcome people in, not shut them out,” he said.
“We have fantastic people from around the world that have made and continue to make a tremendous contribution to Tasmania.”
“They’re our local GPs, they’re our nurses, they’re in our aged care system, they’re on our farms and they’re in our factories.”
In a Facebook post this morning, Lee Hanson said a shared national culture was what united Australians.
“A shared culture (monoculture) is not about ethnicity, religion or ancestry,” she said.
“It is about putting Australia first, living under one law and embracing the freedoms and values that make this country great.”
She said being Australian meant not forgetting where you were from, but choosing to “stand together as one people”.
“Anything less undermines the national cohesion that keeps our nation strong and that is ‘un-Australian’,” Hanson said.
