Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie has used her platform at the inaugural CPAC GB conference in London to declare that conservatives are engaged 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 and panel appearance
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference spinoff organised by former British prime minister Liz Truss, McKenzie delivered a speech on Saturday before appearing on a panel chaired by Truss alongside other rightwing figures. The event also featured One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, whose British tour has drawn sustained criticism at home.
McKenzie's speech focused on Australia's immigration program, claiming Labor would oversee 2 million additional arrivals between 2022-23 and 2027-28 and arguing 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, while net overseas migration fell to 306,000 in 2024-25 from 429,000 a year earlier, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
Framing issues as ideological struggle
McKenzie framed many issues facing Australia and Britain as part of a broader ideological struggle, alleging a global effort to undermine 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. 'Do not mistake. We are in a war and we have to stand together and fight.'
She also claimed Australians were not being consulted on key issues including 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 later 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.'
Reactions from Australian politicians
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg criticised Hanson's attacks on trans rights, telling the ABC: 'In public life, you should try and use whatever power you have to make life easier for people, not harder. 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 the most pressing issues facing Australia. 'Australia is a multicultural country. 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,' he told Sky News.
Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume condemned Hanson's comments and her appearance with far-right activist Tommy Robinson. 'I think that they were unnecessary. 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,' Hume told Sky.
