{"id":925927,"date":"2026-10-12T22:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925927\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:46:08","slug":"what-planet-is-she-on-the-seekers-take-aim-at-cpac-over-use-of-i-am-australian-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925927\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What planet is she on?\u2019: the Seekers take aim at CPAC over use of I am Australian | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of legendary Australian band the Seekers has taken aim at a conference featuring Pauline Hanson<\/a> for using a classic song, confirming no permission had been granted.<\/p>\n

Bruce Woodley said the Conservative Political Action Conference<\/a> (CPAC) featured I Am Australian without approval, while the song\u2019s co-author revealed Hanson had been previously threatened with legal action over its potential use.<\/p>\n

I Am Australian was sung as part of CPAC\u2019s opening ceremony in Brisbane on Saturday, after renditions of the national anthem and Waltzing Matilda.<\/p>\n

The song \u2013 originally co-written by Woodley and the Bushwackers\u2019 Dobe Newton in 1987 \u2013 was also advertised as part of the official conference program agenda.<\/p>\n

Woodley and Newton lambasted CPAC organisers, saying the song about unity in diversity was at odds with the anti-immigration views expressed at the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo permission was either sought or given by me for the use of my song,\u201d Woodley said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s theme is encapsulated in its line: \u201cWe are one, but we are many, and from all the lands of earth we come\u201d.<\/p>\n

After the song\u2019s performance, speakers including Hanson and the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, condemned what they called \u201cmass immigration\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would absolutely never endorse the use of the song associated with those purposes,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n

He said when Hanson tried to use the song in a previous election campaign, he and Woodley threatened her with legal action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said to each other \u2018what planet is she on\u2019?\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBruce and I got a friend of ours to write a furious solicitor\u2019s letter threatening to sue her, and she actually changed her mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that during the 2023 voice to parliament referendum, both the yes and no campaigns approached he and Woodley to use the song.<\/p>\n

Both were denied.<\/p>\n

Mark Callaghan, leader of the band Ganggajang and a long-serving board member of copyright management organisations APRA-AMCOS, said CPAC\u2019s unauthorised use of the song was illegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is permission must be sought and approved for any public performance, especially in that political context,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, he said enforcement was \u201clike playing whack-a-mole\u201d, with his song Sounds of Then (This is Australia) frequently misused for commercial and political purposes without permission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are finding it\u2019s a real problem all over the internet because people put up political posts and then add Sounds of Then, or I Am Australian or (Icehouse\u2019s) Great Southern Land and implying some sort of connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPAC organisers have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

The 1997 recording of I Am Australian by late Seekers singer Judith Durham, Air Supply\u2019s Russell Hitchcock and Yothu Yindi leader, the late Dr M Yunupingu, has become an Australian standard, added to the National Film and Sound Archive registry in 2023.<\/p>\n

It was used with permission by the Australian Republican Movement in radio and television advertisements during the 1999 referendum.<\/p>\n

It is also regularly used in major national and sporting events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A member of legendary Australian band the Seekers has taken aim at a conference featuring Pauline Hanson for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-925927","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\/925927","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=925927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}