Arabic version: مؤتمر CPAC يسلّط الضوء على الانقسامات بشأن التعاون بين اليمين

According to The Guardian, Australia’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane combined a theatrical program with an unresolved political question: how conservative parties could cooperate to defeat Anthony Albanese’s Labor government at the next election.

The event featured a Donald Trump impersonator, opera singers performing the national anthem, and senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and her folk singer husband singing it again. Karl Stefanovic joked that CPAC had “rudely interrupt[ed] my unemployment”, while Barnaby Joyce gave a lecture on money and the historical silver content of Roman coins. Attendees also found unauthorised stickers depicting Albanese, while journalists wore red accreditation lanyards marked “FAKE NEWS”.

Behind the spectacle, preference flows were the central issue. CPAC told attendees that supporters of One Nation and the Coalition risked “reinstalling Labor” if they did not preference each other. Labor holds 94 seats, while the conservative vote is divided between Angus Taylor’s Coalition opposition and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Hanson signed a pledge to work together and challenged Taylor and Matt Canavan to do the same. But she had earlier told the conference that people should not trust the Coalition and appeared to describe the Liberal leader as a “smarmy management consultant” who was unfit to replace Albanese. She also said she would “no longer be the bridesmaid” to the Coalition, leaving Taylor to determine how the parties might coexist.

Taylor avoided questions from Stefanovic about cooperation with One Nation, drawing boos. He apologised for net zero, pandemic spending and immigration increases under Coalition governments, and said he knew how to get Australia “out of the hole Labor has put us in”. With the next election due by May 2028, the conference left the conservative side of politics still splintered.