By Samantha Hutchinson and Stephen Brook
Canadian alt-right YouTuber Lauren Southern has quietly been punted from the speakers' list for the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference.
CPAC 2020 – which is pretty much Woodstock for the Sky After Dark crowd – kicks off in Sydney on November 4 and just in time to coincide with the US election. This year's theme? "Fightback - your voice is your weapon".
Far right Canadian YouTuber Lauren Southern has been dropped from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney.Credit: YouTube
But it appears Southern's voice on this occasion is not wanted by CPAC.
The Institute of Public Affairs, which sponsors the event, is believed to have been among those who raised concerns about Southern's inclusion.
A number of federal MPs scheduled to appear on the line-up and other interest groups had also flagged discomfort standing up at an event alongside Southern.
"A lot of people that support CPAC and want the event to succeed thought it was inappropriate for her to be there," one source close to the event told CBD.
Southern, who is married to an Australian and has moved to Sydney, remains a contentious figure even in conservative circles after being snapped in a widely circulated photo making a "white power" hand gesture to white supremacists, including members of the neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance.
Others regard Southern's views on the "Great Replacement" – a conspiracy theory that warns of white genocide – to be abhorrent.
And quite rightly, mind.
The IPA declined to comment on the event when contacted on Thursday.
Australian Jewish Association president David Adler said he had been reviewing his position on the conference, but space restraints and Southern's removal from the line-up meant it became a "non-issue".
"She had said some things in the past that we find obnoxious, and we were considering our position but it's now a dead issue," he said. "But I think we try to look at the bigger picture. If you avoided a forum in which there might be a person who has said things that you substantially disagree with, you'd be avoiding a lot of forums."
Event organiser Andrew Cooper said he had been made aware of some attendees' concerns, but put Southern's exit from the guest list down to space. COVID-19 event restrictions have forced Cooper to consolidate the conference at Darling Harbour into one event room from two. The smaller event space has also triggered a shake-up to the line-up, he said.
"Some questions were asked [about Southern's inclusion], but it wasn't just about her," Cooper told CBD.
"CPAC is a conservative conference and it's not designed to be a forum for everyone to get up and share the same view. It's a forum for debate as well from a broad coalition of centre right groups … but space meant we dropped about half a dozen."
Cooper told CBD he didn't recall fielding questions about any other speakers who ended up getting the chop.
Other question marks for the conference include tech entrepreneur Steve Baxter and YouTuber Daisy Cousens. Both remain stranded on the other side of the Queensland border.