By Maddie Adams
Australia has long enjoyed its harmless, urban legends such as drop bears and sensational folkloric theories like Harold Holt’s mysterious disappearance at sea (or collection by Chinese submarine). But, as this book reveals, more sinister conspiratorial ideas have become part of Australian life.
Conspiracy Nation (2025) by Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogle is an excellently researched, boots-on-the-ground investigative deep dive into Australia’s history of conspiracy theories and ongoing participation in conspiratorial thought.
For most readers (and Australians), conspiracy theories are a fringe concern that only have real-life ramifications elsewhere such as in America or the UK.
This book works to debunk this myth, exposing an uncomfortable truth that Australia is in fact a forgotten forerunner of some of the most infamous, global conspiracy theories.
Starting with the dangerous “plandemic” and anti-vax theories that boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilson and Bogle guide the reader through a variety of troubling legal, economic, political and cultural events in Australia – as well as the conspiracy theories that informed them or were spawned by these moments of grievance.
A non-fiction thriller, Wilson and Bogle entertain and terrify the reader as they find and speak to eccentric individuals engaged in conspiracism across Australia; in encrypted group chats, online forums, mainstream politics, anti-something rallies and terrorism attacks.
Kudos to Wilson and Bogle for their empathetic approach to conspiracy theorists, which focuses on explaining how vulnerable or disillusioned people are pushed down conspiracy rabbit-holes, rather than simply denigrating or dismissing them.
From these personal testimonies, we learn much about the human predisposition to look for answers (on the internet) when things feel wrong or unfair and how to bring people out of the conspiratorial spiral to alt-right pipeline.
Although the book covers popular conspiratorial thoughts and misinformation such as false-flag operations, flat-earthers, wellness gurus and dietary pseudoscience, the most timely subject of Wilson and Bogle’s work is their coverage of the Wieambilla murders, pseudolaw and sovereign citizens; a movement adopted from the US which has picked up considerable momentum down under since COVID.
Personally, the most poignant part of the book is its exposé of Australia’s convenient “great forgetting” of the local origins of the Christchurch mosque shooter and the growth of “Port-Arthur trutherism” from marginal curiosity to persistent theory in politics and Australian conspiracy culture.
There’s so much more to say about this brilliant, horrifying read, but I’ll let Wilson and Bogle show you just how close we are to national devastation due to home-grown conspiratorial thinking.
We truly aren’t in Kansas anymore.
Featured image: Crikey’s associate editor and co-author Cam Wilson, the striking Conspiracy Nation book cover and Ariel Bogle, co-author and investigate reporter at Guardian. Images: Hardie Grant Publishing
