Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie has used an appearance at the inaugural CPAC GB in London to declare that conservatives are "in a war" against mass immigration, "leftwing globalists" and "woke" institutions, urging rightwing movements across the English-speaking world to unite and fight back.
McKenzie's Speech at CPAC London
McKenzie spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference spinoff in London, organised by former British prime minister Liz Truss. She gave a speech on Saturday before appearing on a panel chaired by Truss alongside other rightwing figures. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson also attended, drawing sustained criticism at home.
McKenzie focused on Australia's immigration program, saying Labor would oversee 2 million additional arrivals between 2022-23 and 2027-28. She argued the country should be more selective about who is allowed to settle. The federal Labor government has left permanent migration steady at 185,000 arrivals this year. Net overseas migration fell to 306,000 in 2024-25, down from 429,000 a year earlier, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
Framing Issues as Ideological Struggle
"If you love your country and respect your past and want to build a future for your children, I believe you shouldn't be apologising for discriminating about who can come and live in your country, not on race, but on values," McKenzie said. "If you believe sharia laws are superior to the laws that my great country inherited from yours, then I'm afraid Australia is not the place for you."
She claimed there was a global effort "to undermine the very best of our British heritage by leftwing globalists," whom she described as well-funded, disciplined and relentless. "We need to professionalise, because our opponent is real, dangerous and wants to destroy us. And our own compassion, kindness, tolerance – all those great Christian values – are literally allowing them to do it to us," she said.
Rallying Call and Criticism
"Do not mistake. We are in a war and we have to stand together and fight," McKenzie said. "We need to be brave in our public conversations … The people need leaders who are brave enough to face the enemy, strong enough to fight them, and in the end, we will defeat them."
She also claimed Australians were not consulted on transgender rights and net-zero energy policies. "Nobody asked Australians if they agreed that a man could be a woman; asked them whether it was OK for men to compete in women's sports, to be housed in women's prisons. All these decisions were made without the people's permission." She added: "Nobody asked Australians when we signed up to the fantasy of net zero if they also supported trashing private property rights as we rolled out renewable projects across our beautiful farmland."
Panel and Reactions
On the panel, McKenzie argued Australia had become "the most woke" country in the Anglosphere and claimed successive governments had undermined national sovereignty through high immigration, net-zero policies and decisions by unelected bodies. Hanson also attacked trans rights, drawing criticism from Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.
"In public life, you should try and use whatever power you have to make life easier for people, not harder," Bragg told the ABC. "In terms of the trans community, it's a small community, and I just don't accept the view that Pauline Hanson expresses, that it's some great risk to Australia … the idea that there's a spectre of transgender people taking over Australia, I just think is insane."
Labor frontbencher Andrew Charlton said Hanson was not addressing pressing issues. "Australia is a multicultural country," he told Sky News. "Waves of migrants have added a huge amount to our country, and I just think it's incredibly divisive to be saying that some groups should be here and suggest that other groups shouldn't be here." Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume condemned Hanson's comments and her appearance with far-right activist Tommy Robinson. "I think that they were unnecessary," Hume told Sky. "They were divisive. They were inflammatory, and they were totally un-Australian. That's not the way we operate in Australia. We have had a proud history of multiculturalism. We're a great migrant nation."
