“We are one,” the motto above the CPAC logo proudly blared on the lanyards around the necks of attendees for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney on Saturday.
It clashed somewhat incongruously with the even bigger text attached to the bright red media passes given to the few journalists who came to cover the event: “FAKE NEWS”.
Parroting a Trump catchcry wasn’t exactly surprising for the CPAC event, a local franchise of the long-running American conservative gathering. In keeping with its US roots, the event hosted a smattering of devotees of the Donald, alongside several Sky “after dark” favourites and one-fifth of the Nationals partyroom.
But the real headliners were the leaders of the no campaign in the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, with CPAC for a second year turning into a rally against the advisory body. With “vote no” stickers and Liberal-authorised leaflets available at the door, the conference positioned the campaign not just as a vote on the voice itself, but a proxy battle of conservatives versus progressives in a fight for Australia’s political ascendancy.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Coalition senator and no campaign leader, urged attendees to oppose the referendum as a way to stand against “woke insidious cancel culture” and “city elites”. Daniel Wild, of the Institute of Public Affairs, took aim at “woke corporates”, stoking fears about future Indigenous treaties.
Speaker after speaker, from CPAC chairman and fellow no campaign leader Warren Mundine and online broadcaster Alan Jones to former prime minister Tony Abbott and Liberal senator Alex Antic, railed against the referendum.
Nampijinpa Price criticised the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, for not sharing more details about the voice; Jones said he didn’t want to hear any details, opposing it on principle. Matthew Sheahan, director of the no campaign group Advance, lauded his organisation’s work in getting the government “caught up” in fights about the Uluru statement and treaties.
It was always unlikely a crowd which paid up to $7,000 to rub shoulders with Barnaby Joyce, Moira Deeming or Amanda Stoker was ever going to back the voice.
But the referendum will be decided by a fast-shrinking number of voters who remain undecided – and on the same day Albanese told Labor faithful in Brisbane to “campaign like you have never campaigned before”, a conga line of conservatives were riling up their base to do the same thing.
Abbott, a member of Advance’s advisory board, said defeating the referendum should be the “main focus” of CPAC attendees.
“This generation of Aboriginal Australians are not victims,” he said in his speech. “This generation of non-Aboriginal Australians are not oppressors.”
Abbott went on to claim “hundreds of Aboriginal men would not have signed up to fight for king and country in 1914 and 1915 if they had been the subjects of a racist empire”.
The Australian War Memorial offers more context. Its website states about 1,000 Indigenous soldiers enlisted in the first world war, but “upon their return to civilian life they were treated with the same prejudice and discrimination as before”.
“By the end of 1915 it became harder for Aboriginal Australians to enlist, and some were rejected because of their race … Instructions for the ‘guidance of enlisting officers at approved military recruiting depots’ issued in 1916 state that ‘Aboriginals, half-casts, or men with Asiatic blood are not to be enlisted’,” the AWM website says.
Perhaps Abbott could have provided more detail.
Speakers dived into their bag of greatest hits jokes when seeking a quick laugh. When Jones struggled to turn on a light on the podium to read his speech notes, he blamed “renewable energy”; Mundine claimed the yes campaign included “lefties and commos” (seemingly enjoying the laughs so much he repeated the gag in a later panel); Antic jokingly asked about “fake news” journalists in the audience.
While the government’s proposed misinformation laws were another major bugbear for many speakers, with apparent concerns about “censorship” and “Orwellian” legislation signalling another looming rallying call for conservatives, the conference shows the effort and heft that the no campaign is shovelling into the referendum.
And while Yes23 has the advantage in volunteer power and grassroots strategy, the frank admission from Sheahan that Advance was happy about tripping up Albanese on the details should ring alarm bells for a government which is still struggling to convince voters or succinctly explain the voice concept.
“Farewell patriots,” came the PA announcement at the end of the day.
“Stay based.”
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