Pauline wants monoculture. No one really knows what she means. And we know that Pauline definitely doesn’t know what it means, she just knows it will create disturbance. So I’ve done a bit of a deep dive on what the mono might look like.
At a very basic level we are talking white Australian culture with no ethnic or First Nation influence or input. Other than Anglo. And if you come here, or if you live here, or if your ancestors have 60,000 years of continuous culture, then you too must stand under the fish and chip flag and bask in the high cholesterol glow of what it means to be ‘Aussie’.
Under the new mono you can still eat fish and chips. But you can’t have pizza. Too Italian. Maybe ham and pineapple will be permitted. Definitely no pasta. You definitely can’t eat sushi rolls. Or fried rice. Or sweet and sour pork. Maybe if you get a permit from the council you can eat honey chicken once a year as it is an Anglo/Asian fusion. There will be no schnitzel nights at the local pub, no pad Thai, no massaman lamb, no hummus, no baba ghanoush, no olives, no camembert, no croissants, no Turkish delight and when you are drunk there will definitely be no kebabs.
Oh, just a heads up, it’s gonna be hard to get drunk. For a start you can’t drink foreign beer. So no Sapporo, no Asahi, no Heineken. You can however drink XXXX and Tooheys. But under the mono, beer is currently under review. You see it isn’t actually Aussie. Or Anglo.
The first true brewers of beer were Sumerians which is modern day Iraq/Iran. That is the birthplace of beer, and our American allies have been bombing them. The other beer origin story is Ancient China who had a crack in 7000 BC. So sadly under the new mono, beer itself may have to go.
Champagne is clearly out. And wine too. It seems to also dates back to China, and Armenia. I thought we could have rum – as it was the first colonial bevvie to take off – but the first distillation took place on a sugar cane plantation in Barbados. So rum is Caribbean, and will not be allowed in the mono under the fish and chip flag. We can probably still use meth (from an Aussie dealer) and drink water. Although we may be a bit short of water with the amount we need to run the big data centres. Although the water usage may diminish with google searches being limited to The Box, Kath and Kim, The Paul Hogan Show and anything related to fish and chips.
There will still be footy. Because the English invented that, and we are including the culture of the colonisers as the core foundation of the ‘mono’. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t even have a fish and chip flag. We can have tomato sauce. Although it does originate from South America, and we know how Trump feels about Mexico so sauce isn’t on the mono. Soz.
Soccer is under review. There are definite roots back to the empire but the high-achieving, culture-creating Chinese were kicking balls around, playing a soccer-adjacent sport called cuju, during the Hans Dynasty. This was around 200 BC, and the ancient Greek and Romans were having a crack as well. Soccer may have to go. Apologies to the Matildas and the Socceroos, they sound very Aussie, but they might have to take up AFL. Which will remain a mainstay in the mono.
Welcome to the monoculture. A handful of white Australians of no ethnic or Indigenous origin eating fish and chips with no sauce at the AFL.
Monoculture is boring. And it’s potentially fatal. In agriculture, monoculture creates an endless food supply for pathogens. Without diversity, disease spreads and the crop dies.
The mono will kill us. Embrace the multi.
And in their own words.
If you don’t KNOW don’t MONO.
Mandy Nolan’s column has appeared in The Echo for almost 25 years. She is a writer, comedian and artist, and was the Greens candidate at the past two federal elections.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
