Preferences proved the sticking point at the conference as conservatives face the prospect of a third successive election defeat
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Many mainstream Australians would feel as if they’d been dropped in a foreign country at the Conservative Political Action Conference, lost amid oblique references to transgender swimmers, blue hair, women’s bathrooms, jokes about falling off stages and Matt Canavan in hi-vis and speed dealer sunnies .
It’s an interesting spectacle. At this year’s conference in Brisbane, rightwing campaigner Monica Smit was deep in conversation with a Donald Trump impersonator, opera singers belted out the national anthem (the first verse, twice, for unknown reasons), senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and her folk singer husband sang the anthem again , and Stefanovic jokingly thanking CPAC for “rudely interrupting my unemployment”.
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