Source : Perth Now news
Liberal heavyweights will make their pitch to Australian conservatives at a major conference, after Pauline Hanson energised the besotted crowd on day one.
Angus Taylor became the first sitting opposition leader to address the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Brisbane on Saturday.
On Sunday, shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson and energy spokesman Dan Tehan will follow Mr Taylor’s lead.
Senator Henderson will to talk to Labor’s Digital Duty of Care legislation which she previously labelled a “blank cheque for political censorship”.
Mr Tehan told AAP he planned on discussing the party’s energy vision and “Australia’s man in Tuvalu” in his address at the convention.
Asked about senior Liberals’ motivations for attending, Mr Tehan said he was using “every forum available” to inform Australians of the coalition’s energy agenda.
His counterpart, Chris Bowen, on Saturday said Liberals were competing with One Nation on “crazy”.
“We’re going to see a whole bunch of crazy over the next few days as the Liberal Party and the One Nation party try to outdo each other on the race to the right and the race to the bottom,” Mr Bowen told reporters.
Mr Tehan in return said Mr Bowen needed “self-reflection” after an “embarrassing few days in Fiji and Tuvalu”.
Australia’s three conservative leaders made their own ideological pitches on Saturday – as protesters outside the Brisbane convention centre admonished One Nation’s brand of politics.
Mr Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan attempted to convince fractured conservatives to focus on ditching the Labor government.
Senator Hanson said she would work with the opposition to dismantle Labor, in an address which received two standing ovations.
She took aim at the Liberal and Labor “uni-party”, suggesting the public would not endure a “smarmy management consultant” in Mr Taylor taking Anthony Albanese’s place as PM.
The crowd later revealed its leadership preference.
Attendees drowned out Mr Taylor with jeers as he dodged a question about who would lead a mixed-right government during a discussion with Karl Stefanovic.
Mainstream journalists – given “fake news” media passes – were not allowed to put questions of their own to leaders. Some were not allowed in at all.
On Sunday, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is slated to appear in a child protection panel discussion.
Think-tank representatives and a prominent climate-change critic will take the microphone before lunch.
One Nation senator Sean Bell is among the line-up of postprandial orators, including CPAC Australia chairman Warren Mundine and Turning Point USA’s Bryan Welker.
CPAC was imported to Australia from the United States in 2019.
