Michael McLaren says Australia needs to have a conversation about how multicultural it’s prepared to be, following a proposal to broadcast the Islamic prayer from the Lakemba mosque.

He says that while there are pros and cons to the proposal, including the fact that Australia isn’t as secular as people claim, previous immigrants shared the same religious background as opposed to the latest cohort.

“Put simply, I think we’re being asked how ‘multi’ we’re prepared to allow multiculturalism to be,” he said.

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