By Duncan Murray in Sydney

OPPOSITION to the Voice referendum has dominated a conservative political action conference in Sydney, where former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the current generation of Aboriginal Australians were not victims.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), modelled on similar events in the US, is being held in Sydney across the weekend.

As Saturday’s keynote speaker, Mr Abbott admitted “official benevolence” by Australia for indigenous people had at times been “clunky”, but said current non-indigenous Australians are not the oppressors.

“There has been an absolute abundance of goodwill from every other Australian to every indigenous Australian,” Mr Abbott said.

“The last thing that we should be doing right now is jeopardising all of that in a misguided attempt to rewrite our history as a story of shame in an impossible bid to undo the past.”

Mr Abbott said the land where the conference is being held, “was once Gadigal country” but is now Sydney.

CPAC refers to itself on its website as a “nonprofit organisation that espouses the best of Howard, Reagan and Thatcher while exploring new ideas and themes for the coming generations”.

Vocal Voice opponent, Warren Mundine is board chairman of CPAC Australia and along with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has  become one of the faces of the “no” campaign.

Senator Price followed Mr Abbott’s address, repeating claims the Australian public had been misled by the Voice and blaming mainstream media for not reporting the facts.

The shadow indigenous affairs minister said differences in outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians are, “more about place than race”.

“The gap exists between those who live in the cities and those who live in remote and regional Australia,” she said.

“Well-meaning Australians are being lied to; told that the problems in Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander communities are a product of systemic racism or colonisation and that the answer is to listen to academics and activists from the cities.

“Academics and activists from what I refer to as ‘the Aboriginal industry’ – people profiting off marginalisation.”

Dipping into his own time in politics, Mr Abbott said when he lost leadership of the Liberal Party to Malcolm Turnbull in 2015, he was urged by supporters to start a new political party.

“There was some who said that they were quitting the Liberal Party in disgust, to which I invariably said, ‘if good people go, worse people will prevail’,” Mr Abbott said.

He urged conservative voters to stick with the Liberal Party and support Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s bid to become prime minister.

“There would have been dozens and dozens of political savants telling Peter Dutton not to oppose this divisive Voice,” Mr Abbott said.

“He would have been told by person after person, the opinion polls are against you, ‘do not oppose this Voice’.

“And yet because he is a man of courage and conviction, that is exactly what he has done.”