When “Australian” Means Everything, “Australian” Means Nothing

“Australia is a multicultural nation,” or so our politicians never tire of reminding us. But it is precisely this notion—that Australia is not defined by one people and culture but by many—that fuels much of the frustration behind Sunday’s March for Australia.

Many Australians fear that large-scale immigration, at a rate that leaves little room for cultural or ethnic assimilation with the nation’s founding family group, is not only fragmenting society but also steadily diluting whatever remains of a distinct Australian identity.

Yet instead of recognising this growing concern, our politicians are doubling down, insisting it is a good thing—that a society divided at its core but superficially united is somehow a source of national strength. As if the invention of the aeroplane—and with it, the mass movement of people, suddenly unveiled the missing essential ingredient to nationhood: ‘diversity.’ And to think, earlier generations were naïve enough to believe that a nation divided cannot stand.

Politicians and media elites constantly tell us that mass immigration is not only good for the nation, but it’s a moral imperative that supersedes any “sentimental” desire to preserve one’s own people and culture. But this, to many, is insult upon insult. If our nation is good enough to move to, if the fruits of our ancestors’ labour are good enough to enjoy, and if the title “Australian” is good enough to claim, then why should our way of life, our customs, our culture, our language, our morals, our religion—and everything that elevated the Western world above other nations—be something to resist?

The reality is that many come to Australia for economic or opportunistic reasons, with little intention of assimilating into the Australian way of life, let alone with its defining people group. Consequently, when we introduce foreigners, we inevitably introduce their culture, their religion, their traditions, and their customs as well. The more who arrive, the stronger and more concentrated those imported identities become, and the harder it is for them to assimilate.

The result, many fear, is the steady erosion of Australian culture itself. Today, it has reached the point where it is difficult to speak of “Australian culture” in any meaningful sense. How could there be an Australian culture if Australia is a multicultural nation? To claim that Australia is “multicultural” is, in effect, to admit that there is no longer a single, defining Australian culture at all—only a patchwork of many.

It goes without saying, if Australia is defined as a “multicultural” nation, then it cannot possess a distinct people and culture of its own. By definition, multiculturalism rejects a monoculture, which means no single cultural identity can truly be called “Australian.” 

The result is that Australia is not preserved but diluted, redefined and then reduced to a vague mixture of many influences without a specific or defining character. If Australia is to have a future that is recognisably its own, it cannot afford to surrender its identity to the false promise of multiculturalism. A nation without a defining culture is a nation without roots, without cohesion, without a clear sense of who it is or where it is going. 

For many, multiculturalism, as it is preached today, does not strengthen Australia—it dissolves it. A culture cannot survive if it is endlessly divided and redefined until nothing distinct remains. To preserve Australia is not to close the door to others, but to insist that those who come here embrace the people, heritage, values, and way of life that made this nation what it is. Without that, the word “Australian” comes to mean everything in general, and therefore nothing in particular.

That is what Australians are fighting to prevent.