{"id":524607,"date":"2026-03-07T12:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/524607\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T12:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:03:08","slug":"at-perths-cpac-conference-liberal-party-faithful-speak-of-the-lost-australians-with-no-sign-of-one-nation-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/524607\/","title":{"rendered":"At Perth\u2019s CPAC conference, Liberal party faithful speak of \u2018the lost Australians\u2019 \u2013 with no sign of One Nation | Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) made its foray into Western Australia<\/a> on Friday evening, with no sign of One Nation on a stage dominated by Liberal politicians.<\/p>\n

The event, dubbed Reset the West, was a rallying call for conservatives to work together, but what emerged was a Liberal party<\/a> attempt to rebuild the centre-right with itself at its core.<\/p>\n

It comes after the Liberals\u2019 disastrous performance at state and federal elections, and polls now showing<\/a> One Nation eclipsing the Liberals with 20\u201325% of the primary vote.<\/p>\n

The federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie<\/a> attacked Labor\u2019s immigration policy and simplistically linked it to the housing crisis. He told the audience of 240 predominantly older attendees that politicians had got it wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigration numbers are too high, while the standards are too low. Our infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople see this growth pressure on the roads, in our hospitals, and in our essential services, and it\u2019s also fuelling our domestic inflation, which remains at 4.9%. That\u2019s why people are angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s annual inflation rate is at 3.8%, but by the end of 2025, Perth\u2019s figure was 4.9%.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Hastie said Australians blamed a broken system on the Liberals and Labor, and that this had fuelled the rise of One Nation<\/a>, the teal independents and the Greens.<\/p>\n

But economic modelling suggests eliminating migration for the coming decade would leave property prices 2.3% higher by the mid-2030s<\/a> than under a \u201cbase case\u201d of migration continuing as expected.<\/p>\n

CPAC is part networking body, part political rally. In the United States, it focuses heavily on Maga populist ideology, Trumpism, and anti-immigration, anti-woke rhetoric.<\/p>\n

While Friday night\u2019s Perth event touched on some of those points, the overall tone was much more moderate. It appeared more as an attempt by the Liberals to head off One Nation than to unite the entire right wing of politics.<\/p>\n

With a speaker list that included the WA Liberal leader, Basil Zempilas<\/a>, his upper house Liberal counterpart Nick Goiran and former politician turned CPAC chair Warren Mundine, some in the audience questioned the notable absence of One Nation.<\/p>\n

While CPAC has platformed One Nation representatives at its federal conference, in WA, director Andrew Cooper said it had selected senior figures from the Liberal party.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew and Basil are pretty senior conservatives so we prioritised them, and Nick is leader of the house,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are pretty agnostic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cgreat Australian dream\u201d of owning a home took centre stage on Friday, with a focus on WA\u2019s record-breaking housing affordability crisis.<\/p>\n

Zempilas said: \u201cAt the same time when the Cook Labor government have banked multibillion-dollar surpluses \u2026 we hear almost nothing about the worst housing crisis in the state\u2019s history and what it is doing to the social fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said access to affordable housing was a major factor in whether young people had faith in governments. A \u201cwhole generation of West Australians\u201d was losing hope of ever owning a home, he said.<\/p>\n

Zempilas admitted that the WA Liberal party had lost Perth\u2019s outer suburbs, and called them \u201cthe lost Australians\u201d because they had lost faith in political parties. \u201cThe Liberal party has to focus on these lost Australians. Our electoral success depends on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notre Dame University political scientist Martin Drum said people were blaming migrants for housing becoming unaffordable, and that was fuelling One Nation support.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Nation has always been very heavily anti-immigration and they have been more forceful about it than any of the major parties, because the major parties are thinking about what skills do we need for our economy and what do businesses need,\u201d Drum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInflation is on the rise, people are worried what their jobs are looking like in an economy that is transforming and I think in a general sense there is a bit of anti-globalisation,\u201d Drum said. \u201cThere is a lot of economic anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drum said the anti-immigration messaging at the CPAC conference was misaligned with what WA businesses are saying, particularly in the construction industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have the right skilled immigration intake,\u201d he said. \u201cBusinesses in Western Australia are asking for more workers in defined areas and the state government has responded by asking the Commonwealth government for assistance in that respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigrants are being blamed for the housing shortage, but there is a shortage of workers to build those houses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) made its foray into Western Australia on Friday evening, with no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-524607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}