It’s that time of year again. Devout followers of hardcore conservative politics will once again converge on the backwater iteration of the US political circus that birthed the MAGA movement when CPAC Australia hits Brisbane next month.
Former British prime minister Liz Truss has been billed as the headline international guest for the third year running. In previous visits, the Tory-turned-Trump supplicant best known for her 49-day stint in Downing Street being outlasted by a lettuce has called for public broadcasters to be defunded, and only a couple of months ago suggested Australia was “under socialist control”.
At least Truss can rest assured Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will be there to make her look impressive.
Taylor, best known to us for his flop at the Midwinter Ball in July, will appear at the conference alongside Nationals leader Matt Canavan, Nationals defector-turned-One Nation recruit Barnaby Joyce, and his boss Pauline Hanson.
The last time Hanson gave an address to the CPAC faithful was in the throes of her whirlwind trip to the UK and Europe, where she was pictured poolside with her billionaire benefactor Gina Rinehart.
That outing, at Truss’s inaugural “CPAC Great Britain” in July, wasn’t much of a smash hit, at least according to reports, which noted Hanson started late and spoke to a room about a quarter full in the Arora Ballroom of London’s InterContinental Hotel.
But our guess is the One Nation leader will have better luck filling seats in her home state.
Asked whether we could look forward to seeing any other conservative luminaries at the conference, CPAC Australia’s founder and national director Andrew Cooper said there were more speakers to be announced. He said it’s the first time three Australian conservative leaders will appear together at the conference.
“Many hope this will mark the start of meaningful co-operation between them, even as each still competes for mainstream Australia’s vote,” Cooper told CBD. Well, that’s one way to put it.
Downing Centre book club
Alan Jones was back in court on Tuesday, unmissable as he made his way into Downing Centre Court wearing an orange sorbet jacket paired with a pink tie, walking stick in hand.
But as Jones got out of his car, one eagle-eyed CBD spy drew our attention to what we’d guess is Alan Jones’ latest read after one of his aides was seen outside court holding the former broadcaster’s transparent blue folder.
The folder, which Jones was later seen holding, carried a copy of Patrick J Byrne’s new book, Caught In The Current, which traces a century of federal and state water policy.
Unfortunately, Jones’ lawyer, Bryan Wrench, didn’t get back to us to confirm whether the former broadcaster, who is standing trial on 20 counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching without consent, is in fact reading the new release. Jones denies all charges.
The Zero Per Cent accountant
Liverpool’s rogue independent councillor and friend of the column Peter Ristevski has previously billed himself as “The 1 Per Cent Accountant”. That was, of course, before we revealed his licence had been suspended and the government watchdog had pinged him for it this year.
Well, the Tax Practitioners Board had more mail on Ristevski this week: It has now terminated the registration of Ristevski’s company, C&N Southwest Sydney Pty Ltd for “serious breaches” of the code of professional conduct.
In a Monday alert, the board named Ristevski as a “de facto and shadow director” of the company, and said he and his daughter, Elle Ristevski, had “ceased to be fit and proper persons”.
The company breached 12 provisions, according to the board. It said the company gave “false or misleading information” through its investigation, and found it provided false or misleading information to both the corporate regulator and the ATO to help clients appoint “straw directors”.
Then there was the finding the company allowed Ristevski to provide tax agent services despite being disqualified.
Asked about the findings on Tuesday, Ristevski said he’s challenging them.
“I have successfully challenged the TPB previously and have confidence in the independent review process,” the erstwhile accountant told CBD. “I strongly dispute significant aspects of these findings, which will now be properly tested before the tribunal.”
The last time Ristevski surfaced in this column was when he was offering his constituents VIP access subscriptions on Facebook for $1.49 a month. When asked about it by our colleague, he called them an “ambulance chaser” and a “piece of shit”.
Thankfully he was more restrained this time around, even if he was still hawking these same subscriptions this week.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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