Jim Cairns
| Born | 4 November 1914, Carlton, VIC |
| Died | 12 October 2003 |
| Role | Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, 1974–1975 |
| Known for (doof context) | Founder of ConFest, 1976 |
James Ford Cairns (1914–2003) was an Australian Labor politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 1974 to 1975. He is included in the DoofHistory.org archive as the founder of ConFest - the foundational event of Australian alternative gathering culture - which he established in 1976 at the Cotter Dam Reserve near Canberra.
Cairns's political career is extensively documented elsewhere and will not be rehearsed here. For the purposes of this archive, his significance is singular and specific: after leaving political life, he conceived and initiated a participatory alternative gathering that established several defining features of the doof tradition - the bush setting, the temporary community, the non-commercial orientation, the principle that participants make the event rather than consume it - almost two decades before the word "doof" was coined.
The archive treats ConFest as a proto-doof institution. It is not a doof in the strict electronic-music sense. It is, however, the clearest line of cultural descent from the countercultural gathering tradition of the 1970s to the doof tradition of the 1990s. Boursine attended ConFest. Boursine founded Earthcore. The line is not unbroken, but it is visible.[1]
The archive notes, without irony, that the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia inadvertently founded a lineage that would, forty-five years later, produce a corrugated metal shed measuring 1.53 × 0.74 metres with a Guinness World Record.[2]
ConFest: origins and character
ConFest - short for Conference/Festival - began in December 1976 at the Cotter River, ACT. It was subtitled A Shaping of Alternatives, and was conceived not as entertainment but as a social experiment. Cairns intended it as a space to question industrialised society, rediscover personal identity, and take collective responsibility for shaping an alternative. At its foundation was a proposition that the archive recognises as structurally identical to the doof ethos: that creativity, cooperation, and shared experience could constitute a genuine alternative to alienation and consumerism.
Cairns articulated this directly. His stated position: "There is not just one alternative. The new society will be made up of the choices of multitudes of people - individuals and groups - who are determined to find a way out. No one can be excluded."[3]
The archive notes that this sentence could have been written by any of the founding figures of the Australian doof tradition. It was not. It was written by a former Deputy Prime Minister, in 1976, about a gathering on a river bank near Canberra. The archive finds this significant and does not consider it a coincidence that Spiro Boursine, who founded Earthcore in 1993, attended ConFest in its earlier years. The transmission is not direct. The inheritance is real.
ConFest chronology (documented events, 1976–2021)
The following table documents ConFest events as held from 1976 to 2021. Attendance figures are drawn from community records and are approximate. Events are listed with location, theme where documented, and estimated attendance. The archive notes that ConFest's peripatetic character - moving between river systems, pastoral stations, and regional NSW/VIC - mirrors the doof tradition's consistent relationship to the geographic and social periphery.
| Date | Location | Theme / subtitle | Attendance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 1976 | Cotter River, ACT | A Shaping of Alternatives | 9–10,000 |
| New Year 1977/78 | Bredbo (Mt Oak), NSW | Focus for a Future | 15,000 |
| Autumn/Easter 1979 | Berri, SA (Murray River) | The Year of the Child | 5,500–7,000 |
| Jan 1980 | French Island, VIC | Cairns event; not supported by DTE | 2,000 |
| May 1980 | Wytaliba, NSW (Rainbow Region) | Largely rained out | - |
| Jan 1981 | Glenlyon I (Daylesford), VIC | Welcoming and Exploring the New Age | 3,000 |
| Jan–Feb 1982 | Glenlyon II, VIC | Viable Futures Through Loving Action | 8,000 |
| New Year 1983/84 | Baringa I (Wangaratta), VIC | Making Alternatives Work | 5,000 |
| New Year 1984/85 | Baringa II, VIC | Peace | 4,000 |
| Jan 1986 | Glenlyon III, VIC | Co-operation | - |
| New Year 1986/87 | Glenlyon IV, VIC | Co-operation | - |
| New Year 1987/88 | Mt Oak, NSW (10th anniversary) | - | 1,200 |
| Jan 1988 | Permacroft (Seymour), VIC | Resurgence of the Call For a New Society | - |
| New Year 1988/89 | Walwa I (Neils Reserve, Murray) | - | 3,500 |
| New Year 1989/90 | Walwa II | - | 4,000 |
| New Year 1990/91 | Walwa III | Heal Thy Self - Thy Planet | 5,000 |
| Easter 1992 | Tocumwal I, NSW | Continuing the Tradition | - |
| Easter 1993 | Tocumwal II, NSW | Weaving the Web | - |
| New Year 1993/94 | Moama I | - | - |
| Easter 1994 | Tocumwal III, NSW | - | 4,000 |
| New Year 1994/95 | Moama II | - | 9,000 |
| New Year 1995/96 | Tocumwal Birdlands, NSW | A Birdlands Experience | 9,500 |
| Easter 1996 | Tocumwal IV, NSW | Back to the River Harvest Festival | 4,000 |
| New Year 1996/97 | Moama IV | - | 6,000 |
| Easter 1997 | Moama V | - | 5,000 |
| New Year 1997/98 | Gum Lodge I (Tocumwal) | - | 6,500 |
| Easter 1998 | Gum Lodge II (Tocumwal) | - | 4,000 |
| New Year 1998/99 | Guilmartens I (Tocumwal) | Universal Togetherness | 3,500 |
| Easter 1999 | Guilmartens II (Tocumwal) | What's Alternative Now? ('unplugged') | 2,000 |
| New Year 1999/00 | Guilmartens III (Tocumwal) | - | 2,500 |
| Easter 2000 | Guilmartens IV (Tocumwal) | - | 2,200 |
| New Year 2000/01 | Gulpa Creek I (Echuca–Deniliquin) | Earth Odyssey | 2,500 |
| Easter 2001 | Gulpa Creek II | - | 2,500 |
| New Year 2001/02 | Gulpa Creek III | - | 3,800 |
| Easter 2002 | Gulpa Creek IV | - | 3,800 |
| New Year 2002/03 | Bylands, Gulpa Creek, NSW | First Bylands event | 2,500 |
| 2003–2006: Bylands, Gulpa Creek, NSW (multiple events, attendance 2,000–3,200) | |||
| New Year 2006/07 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | First Woorooma event | 3,000 |
| 2007–2013: Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW (regular events, attendance 1,200–4,000) | |||
| Autumn 2014 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | - | 6,300 |
| Autumn 2016 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | - | 5,857 |
| Autumn 2017 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | - | 6,100 |
| Autumn 2018 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | - | 6,632 |
| Autumn 2019 | Woorooma Station, Moulamein, NSW | - | 7,200 |
| Autumn 2020 | - | Cancelled | - |
| Autumn 2021 | - | Cancelled | - |
Attendance figures approximate. Source: community records and ConFest documentation. Some figures unavailable or disputed. The archive notes that ConFest ran continuously for 45 years - longer than Earthcore, longer than Rainbow Serpent - and that this fact receives approximately one-fifth of the academic attention of either.
Notes
- ConFest 1976: established by Cairns at Cotter Dam Reserve. Widely documented. Boursine / ConFest connection: community oral history. Archive treats as plausible.
- Archive editorial observation. The archive is aware of how this reads.
- Jim Cairns, ConFest founding statement, 1976. Widely quoted in community documentation. Archive treats as authentic.