Adelaide University will promote a savage attack on political party One Nation and its supporters which includes an “antidote” – a “vaccine” of trade union membership.
The university’s journalism school is calling for “democratic legitimacy” which would educate One Nation voters away from what it calls the party’s “toxic gravitational pull’.
One Nation state leader Cory Bernardi blasted the university’s presentation as an anti-democratic forum which demonises anyone who does not support left-wing politicians.
The presentation by multiple senior lecturers on June 5 drags in US President Donald Trump for criticism in part of the Australian Festival of Democracy & Human Rights.
An invitation to attend says the election of One Nation MPs now will see Australia “joining other advanced democracies in grappling with the rise of the far right, a phenomenon that has seen the US democracy crumbling under Trump’s MAGA regime”.
The presentation says it will discuss “the problems of the far right through the lens of equality, truth and democratic legitimacy”.
It also will “propose solutions to counter its toxic gravitational pull”.
These discussions will include examining what is calls “aggrieved egalitarianism” as well as “structural inequality”.
A special guest will be Oscar Kaspi-Crutchett, an organiser at the Victorian Trades Hall Council.
He will present ideas from the trade union report entitled “Antidote” which argues trade unionism is the best “vaccine” against what it labels as far-right politics.
Dr Victoria Fielding, senior lecturer at Adelaide University, will discuss how President Trump’s Make America Great Again “narrative is underpinned by structural lies which mislead voters about the movement’s true political interests”.
However, Mr Bernardi said it was a case of a “diploma mill becoming a toxic mix of left-wing professors peddling insane antiquated ideas.”
“They need to be held to account,” he said. “It’s extraordinary – they say it is in the name of democracy but they are bringing in trade union leaders and demonising voters.
“It is an anti-democratic forum. One in four South Australians voted for One Nation in the upper house but apparently that’s due to those voters, in a democracy, not being indoctrinated by university clowns.
“It is hard to take any professor seriously when they associate with this rotten ideology.”
Mr Bernardi said universities were now hotbeds for “anti-conservative politics and anti-democratic movements”.
Adelaide University Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Joanne Cys said it was a University of Queensland project and that “open discussion and the respectful sharing of ideas are at the heart of what we do as a higher education institution”.