Washington: An American filmmaker and conservative activist who claims Barack Obama’s real father was a communist poet and that Michelle Obama “is not who she pretends to be” will address a conference in Australia hosted by rising right-wing lobby group Advance.
Joel Gilbert is a regular contributor to far-right conspiracy theory media outlets such as Alex Jones’ Infowars and fake news website The Gateway Pundit, where he is currently pushing the claim that a candidate for governor of California is ineligible for that office.
One of Gilbert’s films explores the urban legend that the Beatles’ Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, though he now calls it a “mockumentary”. He has also made a conspiratorial film about the killing of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin.
Gilbert is being flown into Australia by Advance to be a key speaker at a conference in Sydney, alongside former prime minister Tony Abbott and Liberal MP Moira Deeming. He is billed to make a half-hour speech on Saturday morning titled: “The quiet coup: how judicial politicisation threatens democratic society.”
‘Australia has a radical far-left Labor government. They have the same in the UK.’
Conservative activist Joel Gilbert
Gilbert told this masthead he will discuss a trend by Democrats since Obama to appoint “radical judges” in the judicial system, and a parallel “drift” in Australia, whereby courts were increasingly “asked to adjudicate issues about immigration and health mandates and environmental regulations, and use executive discretion”.
He confirmed Advance was paying for his travel to Australia. The conference is called “Evolve: Because being right isn’t enough”, and is described in an email to subscribers as “the political event of the year”.
Questioned on his claims that Obama’s real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a communist poet and friend of Obama’s grandfather, Gilbert said: “I don’t have the DNA, but certainly the photos bear it out.”
The film was “more about Davis’s ideological influence on Obama”, he said, repeating an unproven claim that Obama was raised by Davis. Gilbert rejected the label of “conspiracy theorist”, saying the term was used to dismiss people’s research rather than engage in the facts.
Advance did not respond to inquiries about how much it was paying Gilbert to appear, and whether that was the best use of donors’ money.
Disclosure records show Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting was the lobby group’s largest donor in 2024-25, making two payments totalling $895,000. Rinehart was contacted for comment.
While in Australia, Gilbert will also appear at NSW Parliament for a screening of his 2018 film Trump: The Art of the Insult – an event being sponsored by Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick.
Gilbert has an ongoing association with Australia. His film about Al Gore – in which he interviews an AI version of the former Democratic vice president – made its “world premiere” at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane. Gilbert says Ruddick gave him the idea for the film.
In January, while appearing on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s program Infowars, Gilbert called the Albanese government “radical far-left” and spoke disparagingly about Muslim immigration.
“Australia has a radical far-left Labor government. They have the same in the UK … It’s hard to get a united western front when half of your best allies are far-left and believe in this idea of DEI and inclusivity,” he said.
“They don’t really understand the big picture of what it means to bring large populations of Muslims into your country, and not understanding that they have a different way of life, a different political goal and a different value system than your society does.”
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.