After winning the leadership of the Australian Liberal Party this month, Angus Taylor declared an intention to harden immigration policy, in particular to introduce measures to stop “people who hate our way of life” from moving to Australia.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack at Bondi in December, a multitude of opinion pieces have similarly invoked “our way of life.” One argues that in focusing on gun laws rather than addressing “radical political Islam,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will “hand further opportunity to those in our midst who hate our way of life.” Another argues against multiculturalism and in favour of Australia’s earlier “emphasis on integration, and on the duty of migrants to acculturate by adapting to the Australian way of life.” Several make the point that an attack on Jews is an attack on all Australians: “The terrorist atrocity at Bondi was just as much an attack on all Australia and its open way of life as on the Jewish citizens it targeted”; “This isn’t an attack on Jewish Australians; broadly, it is an attack on all of us. On our values and our way of life”; “Albanese… is right to say that an attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on all Australians and an attack on the Australian way of life.”

All this naturally leads to the question, what is the Australian way of life? Do we have a distinctive way of life compared to other countries, or do we have the same way of life as at least some others? If our way of life is distinctive, is the difference between our way and other countries’ ways of life important enough that we need immigration restrictions to protect it? If our way of life is not distinctive, is there any justification for restricting immigration from countries that share it—and does it matter if some such countries have greater numbers of citizens with illiberal attitudes than others? And what is the relation between terrorism and our way of life?