Paul Hogan, the larrikin legend behind Crocodile Dundee, has weighed in on Australia's multiculturalism debate from his primary home in Los Angeles, calling Pauline Hanson a "pelican," "outrageous," and "racist," accusing her of living in the past, and declaring his desire to die in a "multicultural Australia." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quickly backed him, praising Hogan for "nailing it" and reaffirming Labor's commitment to multiculturalism as Australia's strength.
How telling. While Hogan waxes lyrical about multicultural harmony from afar, he has apparently had nothing to say about one of the most horrific failures of that model on Australian soil: the targeted antisemitic massacre at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025. That ISIS-inspired terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration killed 15 people, including a child, and wounded dozens more. It was Australia's deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades. By definition, this is the negative face of multiculturalism and diversity; imported hatreds, integration failures, and parallel loyalties erupting in violence. Hogan's selective silence exposes the contradictions in the "everything is fine, we're all migrants" narrative.
Hogan's core point, we're all migrants (except First Nations peoples, who were also migrants if one goes back far in time), so how can we be a monoculture? sounds folksy and tolerant. But it misses the mark and sidesteps the real debate. Hanson's call for monoculturalism under one Australian umbrella was clumsy in execution. Referencing Hogan himself (and Norman Gunston) invited the personal retort. With clearer thought, she could have pointed to the character Mick Dundee, the archetypal straight-talking, fair-dinkum Australian shaped by our inherited Anglo-Celtic ethos, larrikin spirit, and shared civic culture, or the ANZACs who forged national identity in blood. Even better, she should have trained fire on the Albanese government's own multiculturalism report, Towards Fairness: A Multicultural Australia for All. That document exposes the policy not as harmless festivals and food, but as a taxpayer-funded machine for ethnic lobbies, identity politics, and permanent division.
The Government's Blueprint: Ethnic Lobbies as Permanent Fixtures
Far from the benign "respect and harmony" rhetoric Albanese and Hogan peddle, the official report lays out a "once-in-a-generation reform agenda" with whole-of-government machinery: a Multicultural Australia Commission, standalone Department of Multicultural Affairs, ministerial forums, advisory councils, national language policy tweaks, refreshed citizenship processes, diverse media mandates, and "culturally responsive" overhauls of health, education, aged care, housing, and more. It treats Australia's Anglo-Celtic inheritance, parliamentary democracy, common law, English as the public language, Christian-influenced values, the fair go, not as the successful foundation that built modern Australia, but as a problematic "Anglo dominance" to be diluted.
Borders are casually described as "permeable." Multiculturalism is declared "inherently" Australia's identity, shoving aside the unifying civic culture that allowed diverse inflows to integrate successfully in earlier eras. Grants, funding certainty, and co-design with "community stakeholders" entrench ethnic lobbies as eternally subsidised players in the political game. This is not neighbourly tolerance; it is institutionalised separatism, complete with KPIs, compliance regimes, DEI-style performance metrics for public servants, and intersectional lenses (including gender and LGBTIQ+ activism inside faith communities).
Hanson was right to highlight the failure. Multiculturalism, as practised, risks creating parallel societies rather than one nation. The report bristles at "assimilationist attitudes" and shared Australian values, preferring managed diversity where loyalty to subgroup identity competes with national cohesion.
Europe's Warnings Ignored: Sharia, Language, Rule of Law
Neither Albanese nor the multicultural lobby addresses the deep contradictions playing out in Europe, contradictions Australia risks importing. Should Sharia law elements be accommodated in family disputes or public spaces? Should English be sidelined in official dealings or citizenship tests (the report floats tests in other languages)? Should the rule of law bend to cultural relativism on issues like honour-based violence, FGM, grooming gangs, or free speech limits around religion?
Europe's experiments; from no-go zones in Sweden and France, parallel legal systems in parts of the UK, to rising social tensions and political backlash, offer cautionary tales. Mass migration without robust integration around core Western values has produced fragmentation, higher welfare costs, crime spikes in some communities, and eroded trust. Polling here shows declining support for multiculturalism (down 10% since 2020 per ABS data), reflecting real strains on housing, jobs, services, and social cohesion amid high inflows. Australians are not "racist" for noticing; they are pragmatic.
Hogan's migrant-melting-pot view ignores scale, speed, and selectivity. Earlier waves of European migrants largely assimilated into the existing Australian culture. Today's policy, with official multiculturalism entrenching difference plus lax vetting and chain migration, amplifies challenges. First Nations diversity (hundreds of groups pre-colonisation) does not justify importing incompatible governance models or eroding the unifying culture that forged a successful continent-spanning nation.
Hanson erred by tying monoculture too literally to Hogan's persona and nostalgic figures. A sharper framing: monoculture means one overarching Australian civic identity, English as the common language, rule of law supreme, loyalty to Australia first, equality under one flag, while allowing private cultural enjoyment. Not erasure of heritage, but prevention of balkanisation. Her polling dip post-speech reflects media framing more than rejection of the underlying concerns millions share.
Albanese's harmony "microcosm-of-the-world" vision is aspirational rhetoric that dodges trade-offs. The government report reveals the machinery: permanent ethnic advocacy funded by taxpayers, identity as policy driver, and discomfort with assimilation. This setup breeds clientelism, lobbies demanding more resources, influence, and exemptions, rather than the organic integration that built strong migrant success stories.
Australia's strength has never been multiculturalism as an ideology. It has been our capacity to welcome people who embrace the Australian way: mateship, egalitarianism, individualism tempered by fairness, democratic accountability, and a shared public culture. When policy incentivises the opposite, eternal hyphenated identities and parallel structures, cracks appear: integration failures, trust erosion, and backlash.
Hogan wants a multicultural retirement fantasy from LA. The report shows Canberra building the institutional reality. Hanson, despite rhetorical slips, taps legitimate anxieties. The debate should centre the government's own blueprint, Europe's lessons, and a simple principle: Australia for Australians, under one law, one language, one loyalty. Food festivals are fine. Funded division is not. Time to choose integration over illusion.
The illusion of Crocodile Dundee has ended, as Paul Hogan himself has shown.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-pelican-pauline-hanson-polls/h6wm4uc0b
https://nationfirst.substack.com/p/multiculturalisms-mask-slips