Books
Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson
Conspiracy Nation
My rented inner-city apartment overlooks a park that became an anti-vax hotspot during Covid. From my balcony I saw illegal lockdown protests busted up by riot squads, placards telling stories of people killed by vaccines and a yellow marquee from the United Australia Party. I shut the blinds with a sense that society was coming undone.
In Conspiracy Nation two Walkley Award-winners, Cam Wilson and Ariel Bogle, report on a vocal and expanding fringe. It begins at the Port Arthur massacre, deemed a false flag operation to strip us of our God-given semiautomatic weapons. As far as “conspiracies” go this is the most traditional, if still wildly offensive: an alternative narrative to a well-publicised event that demonstrates how a once-established social consensus has begun to splinter.
Many other conspiracies are far more roving and nebulous. The writers cover the great replacement theory, 5G, gender ideology, sovereign citizens and conspirituality – mostly vague theories, often racist and fomented by the far right, that coagulated into movements over social media. Aside: given the conspiracists’ kneejerk paranoia, it’s strange that heavily surveilled social media is used to propagate these theories.
Many conspiracies are American imports, frequently decrying some lost but ill-defined freedom that curtails an individual’s action for society’s sake: to use guns, to avoid vaccinations or road rules.
A stand-out chapter is the profile of Pete Evans, which ends with Wilson going gonzo and forking out $2750 to attend Evans’s three-day retreat. Free-to-air charming, Evans is sincere and misguided, with Wilson exhibiting commendable restraint from landing cheap shots, operating with empathy as he does throughout. Still, a flutter of humour prevails.
In another, we see sovereign citizens try to hijack the Tent Embassy under the auspices of their common pursuit of an alternative legal system. It’s fascinating for how conspiracies can threaten marginalised groups even if the mainstream can withstand them for now.
While opting for maximum coverage, the book leaves many urgent questions barely considered, often left to a quick expert quote despite the pair covering this beat for “many years”. Why has society become particularly vulnerable recently? Apparently, it hasn’t! How much is our information landscape influenced by foreign actors? By social media’s network effects or profit incentives? What makes one individual “turn”? Past trauma is hinted at but not deeply investigated. More time should also have been spent on the human cost of these theories to friends and family members.
Still, as a genuine primer on the corrosive and growing fringe, Conspiracy Nation is a solid start on an important subject.
Ultimo, 320pp, $36.99
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 16, 2025 as "Conspiracy Nation".
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