Radical movements that will usher in major changes to Australian society are being pushed by World Economic Forum (WEF)-inspired business leaders, says Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie.
The idea of “stakeholder capitalism” involves major corporations embracing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.
Senator McKenzie says this approach has seen the implementation of policies, like climate change or The Voice, that have sowed division in society but also capitalised on people’s need for cause and purpose.
“By mixing morality with consumerism, corporate elites prey on our innermost insecurities about who we really are,” the former Cabinet minister told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Sydney on Aug. 19.
“They sell us cheap social causes, skin-deep identities to satisfy our hunger for a cause and purpose ... at a moment when we lack both,” she said.
“Perhaps we’re simply in a post-Christian society, grappling in the dark for meaning and a set of values, and makes us easy prey for shallow but totalised and enforced ideology.”
Ms. McKenzie said the WEF’s agenda’s goal could be demonstrated by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink who said, “Behaviour has to change and it has to be forced.” The senator also noted that “by the way, this is not Lenin or Mao.”
Ms. McKenzie also warned that countries were losing their borders in favour of global movements.
“This is woke capitalism writ-large before us before our very eyes and not just our nation, but indeed, across the globe,” she said, saying that people are being reduced down to simple economic units.
The Pushback Begins
Senator McKenzie believes, however, that ordinary people can turn the tide.“I still think and believe that we all have agency within this structure and this current malaise, as individuals and as a collective to actually push back on that,” she said.
Environmentalism Weaponised Against Farmers
Ms. McKenzie also said that people’s love for nature has been weaponised against Australian farmers.“Our primary producers, our farmers, our fishers, and our foresters were conservationists long before it was weaponised as an ideology to be used against us,” she said.
In the race to achieve net-zero emissions as soon as possible, Australia is rolling out significant renewable infrastructure.
“Consequently, we intend to starve Australia’s prime farming lands and vegetation with at least 28,000 kilometres ... that millions and millions of hectares, of solar panels,” she said. “We will change this nation’s topography forever.”
Senator McKenzie said conservatives have for too long pointed out problems and have done nothing to address them.
“I do believe as conservatives, we do need to offer an alternative vision for the future, something that we can all run towards, something that we can bring hordes of other Australians running towards that vision as well,” she said.
This alternative vision would be shaped by enduring values such as family, faith, community, and patriotism in a modern context.
“Conservatives care,” Ms. McKenzie said. “We are absolutely for free enterprise. We’re absolutely for property rights, but not at the cost of our communities and all the other bits that make us humans.”
She said in public discourse and debates, issues are misrepresented as mutually exclusive.
“These values are not elite values. They are the values of everyday Australians.”
CPAC is running over Aug. 19-20.
