Former Donald Trump adviser Jason Miller and Nigel Farage spread free speech movement in Australia

High profile Aussies like Andrew Bogut have helped propel a new free speech movement — which Donald Trump’s adviser and Nigel Farage are swooping on to expand.

Australia is the next flashpoint in defence of liberty and free speech that began with Brexit, continued with the election of Donald Trump and spread to Canada’s trucker convoy, according to the ex-US president’s campaign mastermind.

Jason Miller, now CEO of social media platform Gettr, will make an unannounced appearance at next week’s CPAC conference after the free-speech competitor to Twitter saw a 10,000 per cent increase in Australian users in September.

It catapulted Australia from the platform’s 10th largest market to its seventh and turned the heads of political observers to the country’s growing influence on the general public in America, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

While Australians consume US and UK politics voraciously, that interest rarely went the other way until images of protests against government Covid policy were beamed across the world.

“Two things have made me pay more attention to Australia politically than any other time,” Mr Miller told News Corp Australia. “The rather draconian Covid lockdowns; just the bars, restaurants and small businesses absolutely crushed.”

“But then the commonality in standing up to the rising threat of China.”

“Australians realised more than anyone, hey, this is the rising threat of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. You see it in Australia with the property acquisitions, with the business, moving in with that kind of soft power.”

Former Donald Trump adviser Jason Miller, pictured here in 2016, is now the CEO of Gettr. Picture: AFP

Mr Miller said the recent surge in Gettr’s Australian sign-ups, led by users in Sydney and followed by Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, was driven by high-profile personalities with a shared appeal across Australian, US and UK audiences.

They include former basketball star Andrew Bogut, and American influencer Andrew Tate, who was recently banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Most significant to the explosive September growth was the addition to the platform of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, who is widely popular among Gettr’s predominantly Gen Z and Millennial audience, almost half of which (46.8 per cent) are aged between 18 and 29 in Australia.

To capitalise on that sudden growth, Mr Miller and Mr Farage begin a three-city speaking tour in Melbourne on Monday, followed by Brisbane and Sydney, before their appearance at the US-based “Conservative Political Action Conference” on October 1 and 2.

Mr Farage, who famously campaigned in the US for Mr Trump during the 2020 presidential election, told News Corp Australia that the influence of domestic politics is no longer confined to a country’s borders.

“The world is becoming a smaller place,” Mr Farage said. “The same debates are going on everywhere and from my perspective, the enemies, as I see it, that we face are identical in Australia, Canada, Britain, and New Zealand.”

Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage has recently joined Gettr. Picture: Supplied/GBN

Mr Farage spent the bulk of his political career campaigning on leaving the European Union as leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party and the Brexit Party.

But after extracting the country from the continental union system, Mr Farage said there were the beginnings of a new, “soft” union of Anglosphere countries as political personalities and debates spilt over.

“We’ve managed to do the AUKUS, deal which we could never have done as members of the European Union. So that shows to me there is already some degree of benefit in Brexit to the UK-Australia relationship,” Mr Farage said.

“If you look at the advanced English-speaking countries, it is remarkable, politically today, how much they have in common. Similar external threats. Similar internal threats. Very similar types of conservative-leaning parties. The same splits within those parties, the same dilemmas they face. Should they become what is now called populist parties? Or should they be Labor-lite?”

The “Labor-lite” vision of Scott Morrison is why he deserved to lose to the Anthony Albanese, Mr Farage said, and the Liberal Party would remain in the wilderness if they go after the teal independent voters.

“The emergence of the teals was no surprise to me whatsoever. I’ve seen exactly that same thing happen in southwest London. Similarly, go outside Washington DC to Alexandria,” Mr Farage said.

“Are you going to tailor your message to those people? Because in my opinion, if you are, you are going to lose. Those people have gone, they’re not going to come back. And the realignment of left-right politics that is happening everywhere, is the conservative parties are becoming more working class than they’ve ever, ever been.”

Basketballer Andrew Bogut is also a Gettr user. Picture: Getty Images

While America has been the epicentre of the so-called “woke culture war”, and Britain has been the front on the war against “globalism”, Mr Farage said Australia is looming to become the frontline in the defence of the Commonwealth following the death of the Queen.

Australia’s influence and prominence among Commonwealth countries have made it a target for hostile countries like China seeking to undermine the strength of the voluntary union, Mr Farage said.

“The fact that you’ve got countries like Mozambique joining, who were never part of the British Empire, shows you there is a view this is a very powerful organisation or a powerful series of interactions, Mr Farage said.

“And this is something the Chinese are acutely aware of. They’re trying their hardest to chip away, Barbados being the best example. Barbados is suddenly in receipt of vast amounts of Chinese money and, before you know it, Barbados has ditched the Queen as head of state without even having a referendum.

“So China sees the potential value of the Commonwealth. I just hope that Australia does too.”