Bold and unapologetic statements from the Australian PM

John Howard has basically said "love it or leave it".

Now that's what I call leadership.

An excerpt (Mitchell is the interviewer):

MITCHELL:

Well what are Australian values? This is the point. What are the Australian values we expect people to embrace or get out?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well we expect them to embrace democracy, we expect them to recognise this is a society made up of both men and women and that each should be accorded proper respect and an equal place. That doesn’t mean that we should try and make them the same in their outlook and their attitude, but simply they should be treated fairly and equally. It’s a society that recognises and respects freedom of religion but it’s a society that does not have an established religion. Christianity, although it is the Judaeo-Christian ethic is the great moral shaping force, has been and continues to be in different ways, the great shaping moral force of Australia it is not entrenched in any way and the Christian church is not entrenched in any way as a state religion. We respect all religions and we respect people who don’t have religions and in that sense, we are very different from a country such as Iran, a country such as, in many respects, even a country such as Pakistan or Indonesia, where there is a far greater, how shall I put it, far greater central role for Islam as a religion.

MITCHELL:

Do you believe that multiculturalism does have, from the understanding of it, the broad support of Australians or are they suspicious of it?

PRIME MINISTER:

Look it depends how you define it. If multiculturalism simply means that we respect everybody, we want everybody to be an Australian first, second and third, but we also understand that people retain affections for their original cultures and countries, and that’s perfectly normal and I think we enjoy it. And we want those other cultures to be part of our mainstream culture and we welcome that. Now if it means that we’re all for it. If it means that we’re going to encourage people to maintain their differences and that basically we have an attitude that well all cultures are equal, all cultures are the same, then I don’t think people feel comfortable with that.

Another article here.