Tucker Carlson gave a speech Tuesday at a sold-out Australian Freedom Conference event in Canberra, one of the final stops in his Australian tour. Carlson's remarks about destructive pharmaceutical companies, woke corporations, Julian Assange's release, dishonest journalists, the obligation of governments to prioritize their own citizens above foreign nationals, and other topics — as well as his mere presence — rankled elements of the country's liberal media.

Following his speech, Carlson fielded questions, including from a pair of antagonistic journalists. Despite their efforts, neither journalist was able to successfully land their attacks.

Kat Wong, a journalist with the Australian Associated Press, opened her attack with, "So, you talked a little bit about immigration, and, in the past, you've talked about how white Australians, Americans, Europeans, are being replaced by non-white immigrants in what is often referred to as the Great Replacement Theory."

Carlson interjected: "Have I said that whites are being replaced? I don't think I said that."

"Well," responded the liberal journalist. "It's been mentioned on your show 4,000 times."

It's unclear how Wong came up with her number. It may have, however, been a gross misunderstanding of a much smaller figure. The New York Times indicated in 2022 that Carlson had broached the topic in over 400 episodes of his former program "Tucker Carlson Today."

"Really? When did I say that?" asked Carlson. "I said, 'Whites are being replaced'?"

When Wong insisted he had discussed replacement in racial terms, Carlson challenged her understanding of the facts and once more asked for a single citation. After Wong failed to produce even that, Carlson clarified his views on the matter.

'If you think that's racist, that's your problem.'

"I said, 'Native-born Americans are being replaced, including blacks,'" said Carlson. "Native-born Americans ... like black Americans have been — African-Americans have been in the United States for, in many cases, their families, over 400 years. And their concerns are every bit as real and valid and alive to me as the concerns of white people whose families have been there 400 years. So, I've never said that whites are being replaced."

After noting that Wong had started things off poorly with a lie, Carlson elaborated further on his thinking:

My concern is that the people who are born in the country are the main responsibility of its leaders. And as noted earlier, when those leaders shift their concern from the people whose responsibility it is to take care of, to people around the world — to put their priorities above that of their own citizens, that's immoral. And they are being replaced in my country, people who were born in the United States and the birth rate tells the whole story. They are not at replacement rate.

So the U.S. population is growing because we're importing people from other countries. My view is that happy people have children. And a functioning economy allows them to do that. We don't have that. So, you need to fix the economy and fix the culture, and make it so that people who want to have kids can. You don't just go for the quick sugar fix of importing new people. And if you think that's racist, that's your problem.

Wong claimed in response that she was not attempting to characterize Carlson as a racist, then proceeded to do just that as well as assign him blame for mass shootings.

"This is the same theory or, as you say, idea, that's inspired the New York, Buffalo, shooting," said the liberal journalist, clumsily echoing the Times' years-old effort to similarly blame Carlson for the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo.

"Come on," said Carlson. "How do they get people this stupid in the media? I guess it doesn't pay well. ... I don't mean to call you stupid — maybe you're just pretending to be."

Carlson underscored there was nothing bigoted about his views, adding that they centered on a "deep concern for Americans, actually. Americans aren't having kids because they can't afford to and nobody in charge cares. And so that's my position. That doesn't 'inspire' mass shootings."

The fertility rate in the U.S. last year was 1.784. By way of contrast, in 1960, the U.S. fertility rate was 3.7. For a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without need for an influx of foreign nationals, a fertility rate of 2.1 is needed.

To illustrate the weakness of Wong's ad hominem attacks, Carlson said that she was wearing the same shoes as Adolf Hitler and, as a result, was guilty in likeness, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

Despite the engagement clearly not going her way, Wong attempted one last rhetorical jab, asking Carlson whether he felt responsible for hate crimes supposedly inspired by his outlook. Carlson simply concluded that journalists in Australia, like in the United States, are "castrated robots reading questions from the boss."

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Paul Sakkal of the Sydney Morning Herald similarly tried to shame Tucker Carlson, but his effort also backfired.

Sakkal signaled ahead of a lengthy preamble that his interest was chiefly in Carlson's interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin, prompting Carlson to make a joke at the expense of Australians' own authoritarian leaders: "Did he make you take the COVID shot? No, he didn't."

After noting that various alleged conservatives had deemed Putin "reprehensible," Sakkal asked, "Do you feel any level of shame or regret that you were termed a useful idiot, and then, post your interview, Vladimir Putin himself said in his Russian media that he was surprised how weak your questions were."

Carlson first expressed confusion over how Sakkal could simultaneously regard Putin as evil while also taking his word at face value. Carlson then suggested his longstanding criticism of escalations in Ukraine's defensive war against Russia should not be conflated with his support for the Russian leader. He further indicated that he does not support Putin, but that even if he did, such ought to be immaterial granted free citizens in nominally free countries should be able to express support for whomever they choose.

Sakkal, unable to land his attack in-person, later attempted to do so in the Herald, penning a hit piece wherein he made sure both to reference that Carlson was a "reformed alcoholic" and allude to — but not cite — accusations of anti-Semitism.

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