When Pauline Hanson stood at the National Press Club lectern and declared that Australia "must be monocultural," the internet's comment section went nuts.

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However, what Hanson actually meant by "monocultural" was clearly a point of confusion.

Hanson she was not offering a new idea; she was offering an old one with a new label. What she was really talking about was assimilation; that is, the expectation of migrants to abandon their cultural identities and conform to a dominant model.

The problem is that monoculture is not a neutral concept: it is not a synonym for unity or cohesion. It is a political project that requires the suppression of difference.

The only modern country that has successfully enforced a monoculture is North Korea, a state that maintains cultural uniformity through surveillance, censorship, ideological indoctrination and the elimination of pluralism. That is what monoculture looks like when taken seriously. It is not a lifestyle preference. It is a system of control.

Hanson insists that her monoculture is simply "everyone living under one set of Australian values." But this is where the sleight of hand begins. This is because when she talks about "values," she is not referring to the official Australian values - the ones every permanent visa applicant must sign onto. Those values are civic: freedom, equality, democracy, the rule of law, gender equality, respect, peacefulness and compassion. They are deliberately broad because they are meant to support a multicultural society, not restrict it.

Hanson's "values" are something else entirely.

They are cultural preferences dressed up as national identity. They include Judeo-Christian heritage, Anglocentric norms, English language dominance and conservative social expectations. They exclude practices she personally dislikes, communities she distrusts and cultural expressions she finds unsettling. In other words, she uses "values" as a........

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