London: Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie has issued a radical call for an assertion of conservative values in Australian life, starting with policies to “break” universities that inculcate “white guilt” and “climate catastrophe” among students.
McKenzie told a major conservative conference in London that restoring western values should be done by changing the funding model for universities, including the way they raised revenue from international students.
The Victorian senator and Coalition frontbencher also called for a tougher approach to border policies so that migrants were chosen on their values – and that believing Islamic Sharia law meant Australia was not for them.
“The left has sought, through our universities, and I’m sure it is similar for liberal democracies across the globe, to groom elites to a certain world view,” she told the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event in London.
“But they’ve also focused on educating the educators, so that masses of children can be indoctrinated.”
McKenzie blamed universities for spreading ideologies to teachers that were then passed on to young students.
“If a student teacher spends four years being grounded in white guilt, victimhood, climate catastrophism or even antisemitism, that is what gets passed on behind the closed doors of a classroom,” she said.
“But Australia’s literacy and numeracy scores have been sliding for years, and the education industry responds by questioning whether the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has got its methodology right.”
McKenzie named a recent controversy, over reports that teachers were unsure of how to teach about the Holocaust to children from Muslim families, to accuse universities of allowing antisemitism to run unchecked.
“Higher education in Australia is our fourth-largest export industry. Do not underestimate this industry’s power,” she told the gathering of about 4000 people at the summit venue and online.
“We have to ask the difficult questions here today. Is it any longer worth preserving institutions that can no longer be reformed?
“My firm belief now is the only way to reform higher education in Australia is to actually break – break it by ending their funding model through international students.”
Her call gained sustained applause from the audience as she noted that fee-paying international students now comprised a growing share of the Australian population and that the number needed to be contained.
McKenzie was given a significant opportunity on the first day of the event to deliver a keynote in her own right, following speakers including author Ayaan Hirsi Ali and ARC co-founder Paul Marshall, as well as several panel sessions.
A former maths teacher, McKenzie was a university lecturer before she entered the Senate in 2010, later rising to become a cabinet minister in the governments of Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.
She has also been embroiled in scandals over the sports rorts affair, when she oversaw funding for sports projects in the lead-up to the 2019 election, and her use of taxpayer-funded flights.
Her address to the London gathering also called for tougher controls on migration so that social factors – including adherence to Australian values – would determine if someone came to the country.
She argued that Australia had become “addicted” to the migration intake but that this carried a social cost if it did not deliver a fair outcome for families.
McKenzie said rising GDP made prime ministers and big business happy, but was not a measure of the health of society if GDP per household was not growing.
“Houses are now unaffordable for young people well into their 30s, putting pressure on them to delay having children,” she said.
“If you love your country, and respect your past, you shouldn’t apologise for discriminating over who comes to live in it. Not on race, but on values.
“If you believe Sharia law is superior to the laws we have inherited from Britain, I’m afraid Australia is not for you.”
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.