August 13, 2025 • 16 mins
It’s easy to dismiss conspiracy theories as fringe or imported.
But conspiratorial ideas are gaining traction with everyday Australians – about one in three endorse at least one conspiracy belief.
They’re also being echoed by people in power, and have spilled into real-world violence.
Today, Conspiracy Nation authors Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogle on how conspiracies leap from the fringe to the mainstream – including all the way to Parliament house.
This is part two of a two-part series.
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.
Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram
Guest: Authors of Conspiracy Nation, Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogle
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is part two of a two part episode. If
you haven't yet, you can go back and listen to
the COVID conspiracy pipeline. Hi, I'm Ruby Jones and you're
listening to seven Am. It's easy to dismiss conspiracy theories
as fringe or imported, but conspiratorial ideas are gaining traction
(00:25):
with everyday Australians. About one in three endorse at least
one conspiracy belief. They're also being echoed by people in
power and have spilled into real world violence Today. Conspiracy
Nation authors Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogel on how conspiracies
lead from the fringe to the mainstream, including all the
way to Parliament House. It's Thursday, August fourteenth. We've spoken
(00:59):
about the Freedom Rally in Sydney in May of twenty
twenty three, and there were these posters and placards at
that rally expose the twenty eight, punished the twenty eight.
Can you tell me a bit more about that conspiracy
and where it came from.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So in the book, like we were trying to understand
Australian conspiracy theory culture, the kind of strongest threads that
come through all the Facebook groups and telegram channels and
in person rallies and protests that we have experienced, and
there are a few we looked at conspiracy theories around
Port Arthur. That's kind of one of the original conspiracy
(01:37):
theories that's spread on the internet in Australia. But this
idea of exposed that twenty eight is another.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Over to you, thank you, mister Chairman, mister Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
So back in twenty fifteen, Senator Bill Heffernan and Liberal
Party senator stood up in Senate Estimates and said that
he had a list.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
It includes disturbingly documents that name in one document twenty
eight people as alleged pedophiles.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
This was the time of their Royal Commission inter Institutional Abuse,
so Australia was kind of grappling with genuine cover ups
of child abuse.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At the highest of levels. There's a former Prime Minister
on this list and it is a police document.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
But in terms of this document, there was not much
to it. People that claim to have seen it say
it's not signed, it's just conjecture. But for many of
these groups, it's become like one of the original sins
of Australia. So when you go to protests against renewal
but energy. When you go to protests that I went
to in late twenty twenty three against the Indigenous voys
(02:46):
to Parliament, you always see t shirts posters say expose
the twenty eight and it's become a kind of shibalith
I guess in Australian conspiracy theory culture.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Right, And so to what extent are we seeing politicians
take these theories from various forums, fringe theories and capitalizing
on them.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, well, certainly during the pandemic you did see some
politicians doubling in this space because there was a potential
political constituency there that they thought might be beneficial. So
we did see some nods and some kind of like
foot see I guess, between politicians and some of these groups.
But broadly we look at in the book the way
that these conspiratorial tropes are kind of politically useful because
(03:29):
they asked kind of so simple, us good guys fighting
against them, bad guys over there conspiring against us all.
And so we do see politicians use these frameworks. And
one thing we look at is the public discussion of
the Safe Schools program, which was an anti bullying program
began a Victoria was being rolled out federally in the
(03:50):
mid twenty tens.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Welcome turnbull is facing a new crisis in coalition ranks.
Government MP's are deeply divibe about and bullying program is
supposed to promote peace and harmony in the nation's schools.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And we did see some politicians using the term cultural Marxism,
that is.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
This program is about marx societeology, about sexual liberation of
young people. I don't want it to be about sexual
liberation young people.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So these are the ways that these kind of tropes
can creep into our discourse, and we see this increasingly
because again, yeah, it is just such a useful way
to create a simple political narrative for people that want
to get clicks, get attention. Unfortunately, we do see them
kind of get folded in themselves because some of those
politicians that dabbled in anti lockdown kind of conspiracy theories
(04:41):
themselves became the target of conspiracy theories when people kind
of turned on them and accuse them of being part
of the plot, the part of the kommal themselves. So
these things do come full circle as well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And what impact does it have having politicians who are
very much part of the esta plishment lean into these
kind of anti institutional ideas.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think it's really dangerous. Anna Merliner, journalist in the
United States who has looked at conspiratorial culture in the
United States, you know, she talks about how dangerous conspiracy
theories be as a way of framing the enemy. It
can lead to hatred so quickly. That's why I think
it is a very dangerous sort of framework for politicians
to be using. In the book as well, we do
look at the sort of threads of white replacement in Australia.
(05:28):
This is the conspiracy theory that white people are being
eliminated in Western countries.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Today, proof that the Abezi government is destroying.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Australia, whether it be through immigration, destroying.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It almost literally, it's crazy immigration intake. Now, this is
not a conspiracy theory, you know, the great replacement.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Through birth rate, through other means.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Our latest fertility figures show Australian women have never had
fewer babies purpose not in the history of modern Australia.
Just one point five babies now per woman.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And that means and of course in Australia, this has
ties to one of the worst acts of terrorism committed
by an Australian they're shooting two mosques in Christchurch.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
In twenty nineteen, Brenton Terrant, a twenty eight year old Australian,
he posted a seventy four page manifesto calling himself an
avowed racist and citing his inspiration both the white supremacist
who killed seventy seven people in Norway in twenty eleven
and the white supremacist who murdered nine black parishioners at
a Charleston, South Carolina church in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And so those sort of threads of a plot of
invasion in Australia, you can see that coming time and
again throughout Australian history, appearing in our media. Scholar Cassanjaj's
looked at some of these issues, you know.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
He argues that mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And politicians have normalized white nationalist frameworks like this by
treating them as representing legitimate concerns. So you can see
the danger there, particularly when you look at christ Church
as well.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Coming up, how Australia hasn't fully reconciled with conspiracy fueled violence.
Cam I'd like to talk more about the real world
implications of these kinds of beliefs. We've talked about the
christ shooter, but there are other cases too, aren't there.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Yeah, there's definitely been other acts of violence linked to
conspiracy theories in Australia. Probably the one that comes to
mind for many people most is the wind Biller shooting,
which happened in late twenty twenty two when three people
ambushed and killed two police officers, injured some more and
also killed a neighbor as well. And they had this
(07:44):
wide spectrum of beliefs.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
The Trained Family members subscribe to what we will call
a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as pre millennialism.
It's a belief system that comes from Christian theology.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
Anti government. They're also anti vaccine.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
A range of different things help contribute to their belief
in this system, so the COVID pandemic, climate change, global conflicts,
social disparity.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
There is also a sense of some pseudo war and
sovereign citizen ideology.
Speaker 8 (08:19):
Now, early speculation around the motivation of the Trained Family
members was that it's centered on sovereign citizen sovereign citizen ideology.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
And it's an example of how these beliefs can lead
you to extreme acts because they are extreme beliefs. When
you say that you were on the side of good
and other people are on the side of evil, and
you see that they're doing terrible things and maybe not
just threatening yourself, but perhaps threatening and actually harming lots
of other people, that kind of mindset leads you very
(08:51):
quickly to deciding that you want to take an extreme
response yourself. And if you spend any time in these
communities online or even in person, they are ones where
talk of violence is pretty common. Thankfully, it doesn't often
become real acts, but it does enough for it to
be a serious threat.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Can we talk a little more about this sort of
the antique government sovereign citizen ideologies, because there seems to
be a uniquely Australian kind of version of it.
Speaker 9 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So, I think what people might be familiar with these
videos that spread online where people are having these bizarre
confrontations with cops.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
I'm not in your juris sorry, I'm not in your jurisdic.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Gives can you tell the police they have no authority?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Can you can you bring can you bring the most
you don't have any authority?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
What is the karan that's been committed?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Maybe they say I'm traveling, not driving, so you don't
have authority or something like this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
We are not driving, we are traveling, traveling.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
You guys don't even know what use are on about.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I made your most seniors.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
These I would class under this broad umbrella of pseudo law.
So the term sovereign citizen is more common, but that's
quartistically American. Pseudo law is broadly this idea that Australian
laws are somehow illegitimate and don't affect the individual that
is trying to use them. So when we've spoken to
people that believe in these ideas or who once did
(10:27):
and no longer do, people have often turned to them
in a kind of moment of confrontation with power in
some way. You know, they've had something go very wrong
in their life, whether it be a kind of financial issue,
maybe they've run out of money and you know, haven't
been able to pay the mortgage on their house, and
in the confrontation with the bank, they turn to these
(10:47):
ideas that are kind of out of a desperation. I
think you often see people turn to these ideas and
kind of in a somewhat logical way because the banking system,
the legal system, like they are extremely complex, almost as
complex as sudo law itself. But there was a historian,
Market Cabbage I spoke to, who's a historian of these
(11:07):
movements in the United States, and he agreed about this complexity.
People do kind of come up with these ideas in
the face of immense complexity. But it's also just like
a great get out of jail free card, like you've
got to find just say you don't believe in the government,
like you've got a mortgage you can't page, you don't
believe in the government, like the council's told you not
do something. He's easy way out. And that's where I
(11:28):
think it might tind this kind of complex relationship Australia
has as a kind of post colonial nation. We do
have a sort of uneasy place here on stolen land,
and so sometimes I think at heart it's about that
really uneasy relationship we have with what we as non
indigenous people are doing here.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And let's talk a little more about how we as
a country responding. We talked briefly about the christ Church attack.
It obviously took place in New Zealand, but it was
carried out by an Australian. Do you think the Australian
government has reconciled with how dangerous these ideologies can be.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, in the book, we didn't want to just leave
all these ideas on the table and not discuss at
all how to address them, so we did look at
how people are addressing them on a personal level, on
a community level, and we did again look at the
failure of Australian government to deal with some of the
worst acts of violence that have been attached to these ideas,
and I think Christ Church is probably the most prominent
(12:32):
example of this.
Speaker 10 (12:34):
Last week, on the eighteenth of March, Kebnet agreed to
establish an inquiry into the Christ Church Mosque's terror attack. Today,
Kebnet agreed the inquiry will be a Royal commission.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
There was this Royal commission in New Zealand after the attack,
and I've spoken to people from the Muslim community there
who have very genuine concerns about how that process played
out and the role that they were able to have
in the process. But they point out to me that
Australia did not even do that. So at least in public,
we've had so little reckoning with the Australian roots of
(13:11):
the man who committed this act, you know what kind
of culture he was marinating in.
Speaker 7 (13:15):
Here.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
There has been reporting about his ties to far right
groups in Australia which is very well documented. He was
a par dissipant in our white supremacist scene on Facebook,
on other platforms, he was a donor to white supremacist causes.
But in terms of whether we could have spotted him
before he traveled there, any of these questions remain unanswered
(13:36):
in Australia because we haven't had any public process to
question our role in growing this person.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And when you look at us politics, conspiracy theories no
longer fringe. They've made it all the way to the
White House. Your book is called Conspiracy Nations, So tell
me how worried you are that Australia could have done
that same path.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
Look to compare different cultures in different countries, but the
effect on individuals varies widely. Like saying that you believe
that howld Holt was kidnapped by the Chinese and a submarine,
very different to saying that you think that you know
vaccines are filled with microchips, and so you won't let
your children or anyone else in your life get vaccinated.
(14:20):
I'm not sure if I had to say, I'm not
sure we're quite where the US is. But the thing
is with Australia is that we have seen these conspiracy
theories used by powerful people in public life, and ultimately
this is something that needs to be resisted because we
think that conspiracy theories are part of human nature. They're
a way of understanding a world that is complex and
(14:41):
often has conditions that feel unfair to us. But that
doesn't mean that we should be resigned to accepting people
using them. We shouldn't accept them. We should be empathetic
towards the people who are kind of falling under their spell,
but to the people who are using them for their
own game, which we coin them out because ultimately we
really need that shared commitment to to a reality if
we actually are to solve the problems.
Speaker 9 (15:03):
That are facing all of us.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Ariel and Cam thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Also in the news today, Australia has joined two dozen countries,
including the UK, Canada and European allies calling for a
flood of aid into Gaza. It comes as Israel has
intensified its bombardments of Gaza City ahead of its planned
occupation of the area, and a blacklisted childcare worker in
(15:48):
Victoria was allowed to keep his working with children zech
for years. Afterwards, the male educator was sacked for sexual
misconduct in twenty twenty after an internal investigation found he
was grooming topdlers. The Victorian government says it's moving to
cancel the man's working with children check. The case comes
after allegations last month that another childcare worker, Joshua Dale Brown,
(16:10):
abused eight children at a center in Melbourne's southwest. I'm
Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Thanks listening
This is part two of a two part episode. If
you haven't yet, you can go back and listen to
the COVID conspiracy pipeline. Hi, I'm Ruby Jones and you're
listening to seven Am. It's easy to dismiss conspiracy theories
as fringe or imported, but conspiratorial ideas are gaining traction
(00:25):
with everyday Australians. About one in three endorse at least
one conspiracy belief. They're also being echoed by people in
power and have spilled into real world violence Today. Conspiracy
Nation authors Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogel on how conspiracies
lead from the fringe to the mainstream, including all the
way to Parliament House. It's Thursday, August fourteenth. We've spoken
(00:59):
about the Freedom Rally in Sydney in May of twenty
twenty three, and there were these posters and placards at
that rally expose the twenty eight, punished the twenty eight.
Can you tell me a bit more about that conspiracy
and where it came from.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So in the book, like we were trying to understand
Australian conspiracy theory culture, the kind of strongest threads that
come through all the Facebook groups and telegram channels and
in person rallies and protests that we have experienced, and
there are a few we looked at conspiracy theories around
Port Arthur. That's kind of one of the original conspiracy
(01:37):
theories that's spread on the internet in Australia. But this
idea of exposed that twenty eight is another.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Over to you, thank you, mister Chairman, mister Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
So back in twenty fifteen, Senator Bill Heffernan and Liberal
Party senator stood up in Senate Estimates and said that
he had a list.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
It includes disturbingly documents that name in one document twenty
eight people as alleged pedophiles.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
This was the time of their Royal Commission inter Institutional Abuse,
so Australia was kind of grappling with genuine cover ups
of child abuse.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At the highest of levels. There's a former Prime Minister
on this list and it is a police document.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
But in terms of this document, there was not much
to it. People that claim to have seen it say
it's not signed, it's just conjecture. But for many of
these groups, it's become like one of the original sins
of Australia. So when you go to protests against renewal
but energy. When you go to protests that I went
to in late twenty twenty three against the Indigenous voys
(02:46):
to Parliament, you always see t shirts posters say expose
the twenty eight and it's become a kind of shibalith
I guess in Australian conspiracy theory culture.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Right, And so to what extent are we seeing politicians
take these theories from various forums, fringe theories and capitalizing
on them.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, well, certainly during the pandemic you did see some
politicians doubling in this space because there was a potential
political constituency there that they thought might be beneficial. So
we did see some nods and some kind of like
foot see I guess, between politicians and some of these groups.
But broadly we look at in the book the way
that these conspiratorial tropes are kind of politically useful because
(03:29):
they asked kind of so simple, us good guys fighting
against them, bad guys over there conspiring against us all.
And so we do see politicians use these frameworks. And
one thing we look at is the public discussion of
the Safe Schools program, which was an anti bullying program
began a Victoria was being rolled out federally in the
(03:50):
mid twenty tens.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Welcome turnbull is facing a new crisis in coalition ranks.
Government MP's are deeply divibe about and bullying program is
supposed to promote peace and harmony in the nation's schools.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And we did see some politicians using the term cultural Marxism,
that is.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
This program is about marx societeology, about sexual liberation of
young people. I don't want it to be about sexual
liberation young people.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So these are the ways that these kind of tropes
can creep into our discourse, and we see this increasingly
because again, yeah, it is just such a useful way
to create a simple political narrative for people that want
to get clicks, get attention. Unfortunately, we do see them
kind of get folded in themselves because some of those
politicians that dabbled in anti lockdown kind of conspiracy theories
(04:41):
themselves became the target of conspiracy theories when people kind
of turned on them and accuse them of being part
of the plot, the part of the kommal themselves. So
these things do come full circle as well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And what impact does it have having politicians who are
very much part of the esta plishment lean into these
kind of anti institutional ideas.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think it's really dangerous. Anna Merliner, journalist in the
United States who has looked at conspiratorial culture in the
United States, you know, she talks about how dangerous conspiracy
theories be as a way of framing the enemy. It
can lead to hatred so quickly. That's why I think
it is a very dangerous sort of framework for politicians
to be using. In the book as well, we do
look at the sort of threads of white replacement in Australia.
(05:28):
This is the conspiracy theory that white people are being
eliminated in Western countries.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Today, proof that the Abezi government is destroying.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Australia, whether it be through immigration, destroying.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It almost literally, it's crazy immigration intake. Now, this is
not a conspiracy theory, you know, the great replacement.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Through birth rate, through other means.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Our latest fertility figures show Australian women have never had
fewer babies purpose not in the history of modern Australia.
Just one point five babies now per woman.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And that means and of course in Australia, this has
ties to one of the worst acts of terrorism committed
by an Australian they're shooting two mosques in Christchurch.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
In twenty nineteen, Brenton Terrant, a twenty eight year old Australian,
he posted a seventy four page manifesto calling himself an
avowed racist and citing his inspiration both the white supremacist
who killed seventy seven people in Norway in twenty eleven
and the white supremacist who murdered nine black parishioners at
a Charleston, South Carolina church in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And so those sort of threads of a plot of
invasion in Australia, you can see that coming time and
again throughout Australian history, appearing in our media. Scholar Cassanjaj's
looked at some of these issues, you know.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
He argues that mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And politicians have normalized white nationalist frameworks like this by
treating them as representing legitimate concerns. So you can see
the danger there, particularly when you look at christ Church
as well.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Coming up, how Australia hasn't fully reconciled with conspiracy fueled violence.
Cam I'd like to talk more about the real world
implications of these kinds of beliefs. We've talked about the
christ shooter, but there are other cases too, aren't there.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Yeah, there's definitely been other acts of violence linked to
conspiracy theories in Australia. Probably the one that comes to
mind for many people most is the wind Biller shooting,
which happened in late twenty twenty two when three people
ambushed and killed two police officers, injured some more and
also killed a neighbor as well. And they had this
(07:44):
wide spectrum of beliefs.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
The Trained Family members subscribe to what we will call
a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as pre millennialism.
It's a belief system that comes from Christian theology.
Speaker 7 (08:00):
Anti government. They're also anti vaccine.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
A range of different things help contribute to their belief
in this system, so the COVID pandemic, climate change, global conflicts,
social disparity.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
There is also a sense of some pseudo war and
sovereign citizen ideology.
Speaker 8 (08:19):
Now, early speculation around the motivation of the Trained Family
members was that it's centered on sovereign citizen sovereign citizen ideology.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
And it's an example of how these beliefs can lead
you to extreme acts because they are extreme beliefs. When
you say that you were on the side of good
and other people are on the side of evil, and
you see that they're doing terrible things and maybe not
just threatening yourself, but perhaps threatening and actually harming lots
of other people, that kind of mindset leads you very
(08:51):
quickly to deciding that you want to take an extreme
response yourself. And if you spend any time in these
communities online or even in person, they are ones where
talk of violence is pretty common. Thankfully, it doesn't often
become real acts, but it does enough for it to
be a serious threat.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Can we talk a little more about this sort of
the antique government sovereign citizen ideologies, because there seems to
be a uniquely Australian kind of version of it.
Speaker 9 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So, I think what people might be familiar with these
videos that spread online where people are having these bizarre
confrontations with cops.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
I'm not in your juris sorry, I'm not in your jurisdic.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Gives can you tell the police they have no authority?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Can you can you bring can you bring the most
you don't have any authority?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
What is the karan that's been committed?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Maybe they say I'm traveling, not driving, so you don't
have authority or something like this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
We are not driving, we are traveling, traveling.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
You guys don't even know what use are on about.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I made your most seniors.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
These I would class under this broad umbrella of pseudo law.
So the term sovereign citizen is more common, but that's
quartistically American. Pseudo law is broadly this idea that Australian
laws are somehow illegitimate and don't affect the individual that
is trying to use them. So when we've spoken to
people that believe in these ideas or who once did
(10:27):
and no longer do, people have often turned to them
in a kind of moment of confrontation with power in
some way. You know, they've had something go very wrong
in their life, whether it be a kind of financial issue,
maybe they've run out of money and you know, haven't
been able to pay the mortgage on their house, and
in the confrontation with the bank, they turn to these
(10:47):
ideas that are kind of out of a desperation. I
think you often see people turn to these ideas and
kind of in a somewhat logical way because the banking system,
the legal system, like they are extremely complex, almost as
complex as sudo law itself. But there was a historian,
Market Cabbage I spoke to, who's a historian of these
(11:07):
movements in the United States, and he agreed about this complexity.
People do kind of come up with these ideas in
the face of immense complexity. But it's also just like
a great get out of jail free card, like you've
got to find just say you don't believe in the government,
like you've got a mortgage you can't page, you don't
believe in the government, like the council's told you not
do something. He's easy way out. And that's where I
(11:28):
think it might tind this kind of complex relationship Australia
has as a kind of post colonial nation. We do
have a sort of uneasy place here on stolen land,
and so sometimes I think at heart it's about that
really uneasy relationship we have with what we as non
indigenous people are doing here.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And let's talk a little more about how we as
a country responding. We talked briefly about the christ Church attack.
It obviously took place in New Zealand, but it was
carried out by an Australian. Do you think the Australian
government has reconciled with how dangerous these ideologies can be.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, in the book, we didn't want to just leave
all these ideas on the table and not discuss at
all how to address them, so we did look at
how people are addressing them on a personal level, on
a community level, and we did again look at the
failure of Australian government to deal with some of the
worst acts of violence that have been attached to these ideas,
and I think Christ Church is probably the most prominent
(12:32):
example of this.
Speaker 10 (12:34):
Last week, on the eighteenth of March, Kebnet agreed to
establish an inquiry into the Christ Church Mosque's terror attack. Today,
Kebnet agreed the inquiry will be a Royal commission.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
There was this Royal commission in New Zealand after the attack,
and I've spoken to people from the Muslim community there
who have very genuine concerns about how that process played
out and the role that they were able to have
in the process. But they point out to me that
Australia did not even do that. So at least in public,
we've had so little reckoning with the Australian roots of
(13:11):
the man who committed this act, you know what kind
of culture he was marinating in.
Speaker 7 (13:15):
Here.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
There has been reporting about his ties to far right
groups in Australia which is very well documented. He was
a par dissipant in our white supremacist scene on Facebook,
on other platforms, he was a donor to white supremacist causes.
But in terms of whether we could have spotted him
before he traveled there, any of these questions remain unanswered
(13:36):
in Australia because we haven't had any public process to
question our role in growing this person.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And when you look at us politics, conspiracy theories no
longer fringe. They've made it all the way to the
White House. Your book is called Conspiracy Nations, So tell
me how worried you are that Australia could have done
that same path.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
Look to compare different cultures in different countries, but the
effect on individuals varies widely. Like saying that you believe
that howld Holt was kidnapped by the Chinese and a submarine,
very different to saying that you think that you know
vaccines are filled with microchips, and so you won't let
your children or anyone else in your life get vaccinated.
(14:20):
I'm not sure if I had to say, I'm not
sure we're quite where the US is. But the thing
is with Australia is that we have seen these conspiracy
theories used by powerful people in public life, and ultimately
this is something that needs to be resisted because we
think that conspiracy theories are part of human nature. They're
a way of understanding a world that is complex and
(14:41):
often has conditions that feel unfair to us. But that
doesn't mean that we should be resigned to accepting people
using them. We shouldn't accept them. We should be empathetic
towards the people who are kind of falling under their spell,
but to the people who are using them for their
own game, which we coin them out because ultimately we
really need that shared commitment to to a reality if
we actually are to solve the problems.
Speaker 9 (15:03):
That are facing all of us.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Ariel and Cam thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Also in the news today, Australia has joined two dozen countries,
including the UK, Canada and European allies calling for a
flood of aid into Gaza. It comes as Israel has
intensified its bombardments of Gaza City ahead of its planned
occupation of the area, and a blacklisted childcare worker in
(15:48):
Victoria was allowed to keep his working with children zech
for years. Afterwards, the male educator was sacked for sexual
misconduct in twenty twenty after an internal investigation found he
was grooming topdlers. The Victorian government says it's moving to
cancel the man's working with children check. The case comes
after allegations last month that another childcare worker, Joshua Dale Brown,
(16:10):
abused eight children at a center in Melbourne's southwest. I'm
Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Thanks listening
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