SYDNEY (Reuters) -At a candle-lit vigil in a park in the centre of Sydney on Friday, Australian supporters of Charlie Kirk said his death would galvanise the conservative activist’s message in the country.
Kirk, a 31-year-old author, podcast host and close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, was shot dead on Wednesday as he gave a talk at a university in Utah in what Trump called a “heinous assassination.”
His Turning Point USA activist group advocating for right-wing causes has spawned a number of international offshoots, including in Australia, where supporters gathered to mourn Kirk on Friday, lighting candles and singing hymns at a sunset service.
Australia elected the centre-left Labor Party by a resounding margin at nationwide polls in May, though thousands rallied against the government last month protesting high immigration and the cost of living in the country.
“I know you feel the pain of this loss of Charlie, but it’s going to take more than one bullet to silence his message,” Joel Jammal, founder of Turning Point Australia, told the crowd, estimated around 350 strong by police.
Jammal called on supporters to attend separate anti-government protests planned in the city on Saturday.
Turning Point Australia’s website said Jammal founded the organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, unhappy with the way established right-wing parties in Australia supported lockdowns.
“Joel strove to teach Australians who was punching them, why they are punching them and how they could punch back politically,” a biography of Jammal said.
Turning Point Australia says it is licensed to use the Turning Point USA branding, and shares “the same love for freedom” with the parent organisation, but operates independently in terms of management and policy positions.
The group, which has not publicised its membership numbers, has previously hosted events with lawmakers from One Nation, a right-wing populist political party that holds four of the 76 seats in Australia’s upper house of parliament, known as the Senate.
It also brought Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform UK party, to Australia for a speaking tour in 2022.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to advocate for right-wing causes in the United States, but had turned his attentions to other countries in recent years.
Days before his death, he cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia.
(Reporting by Alasdair Pal, Cordelia Hsu and Stefica Bikes in Sydney; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
