Liberal-National Opposition Leader Peter Dutton committed to keeping “woke agendas” that have “come out of universities” out of schools – but yesterday he couldn’t actually identify what woke issues were in the national curriculum. 

That’s not uncommon. After I was amused and surprised to hear Liberal National senator Matt Canavan accuse Queen Elizabeth II of being “woke”, the Australia Institute assembled a list of people and organisations whom conservatives had accused of being woke. 

The Queen was in surprising company: among the “woke” were the Wiggles, the Australian cricket team, the Tasmanian Liberal Party and the Pope. 

So who isn’t woke? Well, Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, at least according to the Daily Telegraph. 

Woke is a useful pejorative precisely because it means nothing – the listener can fill in whatever grievances they have, not realising that to other listeners, *they* would be considered woke.

In fact, it’s not just Peter Dutton who is unclear on what is woke or not. 

Our polling research in 2022 found most Australians either didn’t know what the word meant, or had a positive definition of the word. When politicians rail against “woke”, they’re narrowcasting to about 12% of the population.