QAnon: how the far-right cult took Australians down a ‘rabbit hole’ of extremism

Conspiracy theories have taken root in Australia, but it doesn't impact just the converts. For every new believer, there are the friends and family who they've shut out

Cam Smith, an Australian researcher who monitors online far-right activity, had first noticed mention of QAnon in the local communities he watched as early as 2018. At the time, it looked like just a few tiny meetup groups on Facebook" of around 20 people, he told me. They were talking about, Oh, we'll meet up at like some pub in Oakleigh, and we'll talk about this QAnon thing.' And I didn't think it was going to be that important."

Smith's interest in the local movement was sparked again during the periods of heavy coronavirus public health restrictions in Melbourne, in 2020. To contain an outbreak of the virus within Melbourne's public housing high-rise towers, local authorities had moved quickly - and controversially - to unilaterally lock down the residential communities in the buildings. In defiance of the restrictions, a group of QAnon believers drove nearly 2,000km from Queensland to protest against the events, filming themselves - and expounding their theories - as they went.