Wong Defends Multiculturalism, Declines to Condemn Trump Directive on Migrant Crime

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has reaffirmed her government’s support for multiculturalism, but stopped short of condemning the Trump administration’s diplomatic directive to study links between mass migration and crime.

The U.S. State Department issued the directive to its embassies in allied nations, while also asking for information on “policies that punish citizens who object to continued mass migration.”

Former Labor Senator Fatima Payman, now-independent, pushed for Wong to condemn the U.S. directive.

“The Senate resolved to reject the immature stunt that Senator [Pauline] Hanson pulled earlier this week and stand with Australia’s multicultural communities,” Payman said, referencing the move to suspend Hanson for seven sitting days for wearing a burqa in a repeat of her 2017 stunt.

“In that context, minister, will this government similarly condemn this hateful and divisive edict from President [Donald] Trump?”

Wong responded saying the Australian government would always make its own decisions in its own best interests.

“We are a pluralist nation,” she said. “We welcome different races, different religions, different views.

“That is the position of this government, and I think we have demonstrated that.”

Payman again drew comparisons between Trump and Hanson, who recently visited Mar-a-Lago where she addressed the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference.

“[Australia] needs to know whether the government of which you are a part will stand against division, whether it comes from an Australian senator or an American president,” she said.

“So I repeat the question: With respect, will this government condemn this hateful and divisive edict from President Trump? Yes or no.”

Wong reiterated that Australia was responsible for its own national policies, and did not give a clear “yes or no.”

“We speak for Australia,” she said.

“As I have repeatedly said over a couple of decades of public life, and as this government has repeatedly said and, I think, demonstrated by who we are, we are a party that supports our pluralist multicultural nation.

“One in two Australians is born overseas or has a parent born overseas.”

Both Payman and Wong are born overseas.

Payman then criticised Wong for not condemning Trump, before asking her to explain why the government “appears to be willing to defend multicultural Australia only when it’s politically convenient.”

Wong said she would try “very hard” not to be offended by Payman’s final question (pdf)

“There are some of us on this side who have defended multiculturalism for all our lives, and we always will,” she said.

President’s Migrant Crime Concerns

In a statement posted on X, the U.S. Department of State said “mass migration poses an existential threat to Western civilization and undermines the stability of key American allies.”

It comes as migrant-heavy population centres in Australia, like Melbourne, struggle with surging crime rates.

In September, President Trump told the United Nations that in some European countries, prison populations comprised 50 percent migrants, while in Switzerland, the percentage was more than 70 percent.

“When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum seekers who repay kindness with crime … it’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders—you have to end it now,” he said.

More recently, the U.S. government ordered an investigation into migrant crime after an Afghan-born migrant, Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly shot two National Guard soldiers in Washington D.C.

National Guard Soldier Specialist Sarah Beckstrom was killed in the attack, while Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe remains hospitalised in a critical condition.

“This atrocity reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country,” Trump told reporters.