The Guest List for Cory Bernardi's Very Boring Sounding Conservative Party

Back in 2016, just days after retaining his sweet Senate seat as a part of the Liberal party ticket in South Australia, sacked parliamentary secretary, children's book author, and self-described revolutionary Cory Bernardi announced he was launching his own organisation, the Australian Conservatives.

Facing some backlash for starting a new political party despite gaining a seat in parliament thanks to the Liberals, Cory quickly clarified that the Conservatives would be a formalised political movement rather than a party in its own right. This controversy is pretty fucking excellent given his blog post from only three weeks ago, "Dangerous Dalliance With Populist Minor Parties."

Whatever the case, Cory's vision for the Conservatives is "to help change politics and give common sense a united voice." More specifically, the organisation is for those who "believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense."

My little rule of thumb, in politics but also in life, is to watch out for two phrases: "Telling it like it is" and "common sense." If I hear them, I assume the person is 1) lying to me, and 2) at least a bit of a dick.

To learn more about the Australian Conservatives, I registered my interest via the website. After signing up I actually immediately felt more patriotic than I had in some time, tears welling as I recalled some of Australia's greatest achievements: Corey Worthington, that NT News front page about the hurled dildo, and Sydney University's bell tower playing Darude's "Sandstorm."

But who would be my brethren? My brothers and sisters in arms? Who would join this Conservative movement to change the face of Australian politics forever, through the power of common sense alone? To date there haven't been any public announcements, so I can only assume that I'll be fighting the good fight alongside these fine men and women.

Surely this is a no-brainer. Andrew Bolt, conservative hero, nay, legend, nay, myth, would almost certainly be there to lend a hand in the heat of battle. If nothing else, his self-righteous anger would light fires under his regular commenters, driving them into battle after petty battle. And his convict status would lend a certain je ne sais quoi to the movement.

Alan Jones loves this kind of shit. He's even been the patron of CANdo, previously described as a conservative GetUp! and best known for its petition seeking a public apology to Alan Jones. What an absolute champion and not at all an atrocious human being.

Ah, Maurice Newman, Tony Abbott's business advisor and erstwhile Australian columnist. We're not so different, you and I. I mean, I have a hunch there might be something we can do about climate change, you believe that it's a UN hoax perpetrated to force the creation of a one world government. But the most important thing is that we both have beliefs.

Because whether one of us believes in insane conspiracy theories or not—and sure, I'll leave it up to you to decide which one of us, of course, Maurice, just chill out, sorry, I didn't mean to use a word related to temperature, can we just circle back on this later, yes, yes, you pick the time, and you can wear your foil hat—we'll need to trust one another with our lives.

Doctor Who/Reclaim Australia fan George Christensen would be Bernardi's ally in the halls of Parliament, muttering about halal in the cafeteria. Because it's fucking important.

This "hard-hitting" journalist (per official bio) would undoubtedly rally to Bernardi's side. It takes a special kind of loyalty to interpret an article quoting a Liberal politician as saying, "[Bernardi]'s basically kryptonite for any serious person in the party because he's a complete embarrassment," as actually painting a picture "of a popular conviction politician." And that's just the quasi-delusional kind of loyalty we'll need.

To gain footing as a political party the Australian Conservatives will need a list of 500 members, lest they meet the sad fate of convicted electoral fraudster and newly elected Senator Pauline Hanson. Anyway, 450 or so pet rocks should go some way to making sure that the organisation has the requisite membership so as to avoid any legal issues.

This would be a bit of a wild experiment, to be honest, but ultimately it would pay off due to an agreement to license the movement the rights to the Eureka Flag.

Let freedom ring!

I'm sure you'll agree that this is an impressive group to take the conservative movement forward. I, for one, am incredibly excited about the future of Australia with leadership of this calibre.* So please do keep an eye out for the imminent rise and rise of the Australian Conservatives.

Coz there ain't no party like a Conservative Party, coz a Conservative Party may or may not exist in future depending on the final election result and how much Malcolm Turnbull ultimately gives Bernardi the shits.

Follow Scott on Twitter

*No pun intended, except with relation to the .22 rifle, where there was of course a pun intended.