In a speech at a United Israel Function in Sydney on Thursday night, Morrison referenced Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage as he talked about faith and community.

“Seeing the inherent dignity of all human beings is the foundation of morality,” he said.

“It makes us more capable of love and compassion, of selflessness and forgiveness.

“Because if you see the dignity and worth of another person, another human being, the beating heart in front of you, you’re less likely to disrespect them, insult or show contempt or hatred for them, or seek to cancel them, as is becoming the fashion these days.”

Cancel culture is the internet equivalent of ostracism, where a person is ‘cancelled’ by others for their views or actions.

Morrison also highlighted individual and personal responsibility, its relevance to citizenship and the role of the state in society.

“Where we once understood our rights in terms of our protections from the state, now it seems these rights are increasingly defined by what we expect from the state,” he said.

“As citizens, we cannot allow what we think we are entitled to, to become more important than what we are responsible for as citizens.”

Morrison pushed back against social and moral corrosion “caused by the misuse of social media and the abuse that often occurs there”.

“But I would say it also includes the growing tendency to commodify human beings through identity politics,” he added.

“You are more than your gender, you are more than your race, you are more than your sexuality, you are more than your ethnicity, you are more than your religion, your language group, your age.”

Earlier this week, Morrison’s personal faith came under the spotlight when details of a speech he gave to a national Christian conference earlier this month were made public.

The prime minister, a Pentecostal, spoke of social media being used by “the evil one” to undermine society and described identity politics as “corrosive”.

He also spoke of doing God’s work and he sometimes used the Evangelical practice of “laying on of hands” while embracing people who had suffered from trauma or natural disaster.

On talkback radio this morning, Morrison defended talking publicly about his faith.

“We have Christian talks to Christians about Christian things,” Morrison said.

“I don’t think that’s really a newsflash, but I have been, I suppose, disappointed about how some of that has been mischaracterised.”