Liberal’s Mundine joins Price spruiking “MAGA”

EXCLUSIVE

ANTHONY KLAN

Senator Jacinta Price’s co-front as the face of the anti-Indigenous Voice campaign — senior Liberal Party figure Warren Mundine — has also appeared publicly spruiking “Make Australia Great Again”.

Just weeks ago, taking the stage where “far-right” operative Steve Bannon had thrown a Nazi-style salute — and Elon Musk had brandished a chainsaw — Mundine lavished praise on Donald Trump.

The senior Liberal Party figure declared he would “Make Australia Great Again!” before donning a cap with the slogan.

“It has been brilliant to see Donald Trump come back and help us in this resurgence,” Mundine told the audience of the US CPAC event on February 21.

“We’re so proud to be here.

“We’re so proud to see JD Vance and the people who have been working so hard with Donald Trump to make the world free again,” said Mundine, with his hand held to his chest.

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“Make Australia Great Again” – Mundine at the CPAC event. Source: Facebook/CPAC Australia

Mundine praised “the great Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price” who he had “stood up with” and seen the Indigenous Voice proposal “destroyed”.

Standing alongside Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Price on Saturday told an election rally in Perth she wanted to “make Australia great again”.

The Coalition rushed to play down the statement, with Nationals Leader David Littleproud declaring it a “slip of the tongue”.

Price said she didn’t “even realise” she made the comments, before accusing the media of being “obsessed” with Donald Trump.

“Price accused the media of being ‘obsessed’ with Donald Trump”

Shortly afterwards an image surfaced of her wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap.

Jacinta Price and her husband Colin Lillie at Christmas. Source: Facebook

In the image, taken just months ago at Christmas, Price’s husband Colin Lillie is wearing a “Make America Great Again” Santa hat and Price is holding up to the camera a miniature, MAGA-cap wearing Donald Trump.

The Coalition has for months been advocating Trumpian-style policies and pushing MAGA rhetoric — including in January announcing Price would be made shadow minister for government efficiency to cut “wasteful spending”, after Trump announced Musk would head a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).

Yet the party has sought to aggressively backpedal in recent weeks, with Trump and Trumpism now seen as political kryptonite.

Since taking office in January, the US President has launched vicious attacks on long-standing allies, undermined the western world order and pushed a highly erratic “tariffs” policy that has sent stock markets tumbling globally.

Elon Musk on stage at the event. Source: CPAC Australia/Facebook

Mundine is the chair of CPAC Australia, the local arm of the “far-right” vested-interests lobby group, the “Conservative Political Action Conference”.

He was the highest profile candidate for Liberal Party preselection for the seat of Bradfield in the upcoming federal election but was defeated by Gisele Kapterian.

Liberal Party operatives were reportedly concerned Mundine’s role leading the Voice “No” campaign would alienate voters, with Bradfield being the only Liberal-held seat that voted a majority “Yes” to the proposal.

(Mundine said there was “no doubt” Kapterian won because she was a woman, in comments Kapterian said were “disrespectful”).

Former Trump senior advisor Steve Bannon at the CPAC event. Source: Facebook

Mundine and CPAC Australia national director Andrew Cooper fronted the Maryland conference on February 21.

That was just hours after former Trump policy advisor Bannon had, the night before, thrown a Nazi-style salute, prompting the leader of France’s far-right National Rally to cancel his planned speech.

Jordan Barella said that “out of provocation”, Bannon had “allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology” and so he “took the immediate decision” to cancel speaking at the event.

Speaking at the event, Cooper told the audience that he and Mundine “commit to you” to “do everything” to “make Australia great again” — with the pair then donning their Australian MAGA caps.

Mundine then pointed to his MAGA cap and grinned.

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Source: CPAC Australia/Facebook. Graphic: The Klaxon

“Hello CPAC, well Warren, here we are on the big stage,” Cooper told the audience.

“Elon and JD, they were just there,” he said, pointing next to him.

“There’s one commitment we will make to you.

“Your President has committed to you, and you have enabled your president to have the opportunity to make Australia great again!”

“We will commit to you that we will do everything possible to make Australia great again!”

“We will do everything possible to make Australia great again” — Mundine and Cooper

Cooper said Mundine’s successful campaign against the Voice had helped a “resurgence of confidence” among Australian “conservatives”.

“We’ve got an election coming up in a couple of months in Australia and there’s a resurgence of confidence within the Australian conservatives and a lot of that confidence can largely be traced back to you Warren,” he said.

“You led the fight against a horrible proposed amendment to the Australian constitution”.

 “A lot of that confidence can largely be traced back to you Warren” — Andrew Cooper

Price and Mundine campaigning to stop the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Source: Advance

Mundine repeated a string of lies about the Voice proposal, including that it would have “put one race above every other race”, that it meant “one single group was going to have more power than the rest of Australia” and that it had been an attack on “our constitutional freedom”.

“So I stood up and of course I was with the great Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price,” he said.

“I stood up and of course I was with the great Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price” — Warren Mundine

“We got up and fought this battle and what we knew was that Australian people had been so beat up, had been so crushed by the wokes and the cancel culture that they were scared about voting”.

“Australian people had been so beat up…that they were scared about voting”.

Australia has had a secret ballot system since Federation.

Mundine places his hand on his chest as he praises Trump and US Vice President JD Vance. Source: CPAC Australia/Facebook

Mundine said he and Price had “flipped” the referendum’s outcome, having tripled opposition, from around 20% of Australians to 60%.

“When we kicked off it was something like 80% were going to vote for this change,” he said.

“But within four to five months we flipped it.

“We ended up winning 60-40 and we destroyed that attack on our constitutional freedom,” he said.

“Within four to five months we flipped it” — Warren Mundine

Around 80% of Indigenous Australians voted in favour of the proposal.

Mundine and Price fronted “Advance” in its fight against the Voice. Source: Advance/Fair Australia

The Voice would have allowed for the creation of a centralised advisory panel of Indigenous Australians to provide advice on matters affecting them and to reduce waste.

It was to be added to the constitution to prevent future governments from easily dismantling it, which Indigenous leaders have said has been a consistent problem in the past, causing duplication, a loss of institutional memory and associated waste.

It would not have given Indigenous Australians “more power than the rest of Australia” or “put one race above every other race” and would have had no impact on “constitutional freedom”.

Price and Mundine were the public front of disinformation group “Advance” which aggressively spread lies and disinformation to defeat the Voice.

Representing almost the entire “No” campaign, it claimed to be a “grassroots” movement of “ordinary Aussies” — when it was in fact bankrolled by a handful of mega-millionaires, many with deep ties to fossil fuels.

One of the biggest impediments to aggressive fossil fuels expansion globally has been Indigenous rights.

CPAC Australia celebrating “Australia Day”. Source: CPAC Australia/Facebook

Mundine has deep ties to the mining sector and is a director of international uranium explorer, Aura Energy.

He is also chair of “minerals exploration” company Fuse Minerals, which almost immediately after Voice referendum launched an IPO seeking up to $10 million from the public. The raising failed and the IPO was abandoned.

“One of the biggest impediments to aggressive fossil fuels expansion has been Indigenous rights”

The biggest donor to Advance last financial year — by a factor of 10 — was the Liberal Party, which gave it $500,000 via its election funding vehicle, the Cormack Foundation.

CPAC Australia’s annual conference held in Brisbane late last year was funded by Advance and by fellow US-style disinformation group the “Institute of Public Affairs”, or “IPA”.

Advance actively spreads anti-renewable and pro-fossil fuels propaganda — including lies that offshore windfarms are “killing whales” — and runs an arm called “Not Zero”.

Source: Not Zero/Advance

The IPA refuses to say who funds it, but fossil fuels billionaire Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person has in previous years been revealed as its biggest funder.

It operates as a junk “think tank” and produces biased “reports” in favour of fossil fuels and attacking renewables — including “reports” then pushed by Advance’s “Not Zero” arm.

The biggest funder of Advance in the six months before the Voice referendum was notorious climate denier Bryant Macfie, who, like Rinehart, is an IPA “life member”.

“We have the election coming up in a couple of months and for the first time in nearly 100 years, it looks like a government will not have a second term,” Mundine told the audience.

“We are going to slay the socialist Labor Government”.

Less than three weeks from election day, Dutton is behind in the polls, with the ALP’s modest lead widening, according to three separate polls over the past 48 hours.

Australia is under threat from bad actors seeking to enrich themselves and their vested interests’ backers at the expense of the public.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

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Thank you,

Anthony Klan

Editor, The Klaxon