Exclusive: Former prime minister Tony Abbott to address Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in LondonFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie and the Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming, along with key figures from News Corp, are to attend a UK conference led by Jordan Peterson which aims to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”.A list of attenders seen by Guardian Australia showed more than 50 Australians, including figures from rightwing thinktanks and churches, attending gathering staged by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc), which is associated with the Canadian psychologist and self-help book author.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…Exclusive: Former prime minister Tony Abbott to address Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in LondonFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie and the Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming, along with key figures from News Corp, are to attend a UK conference led by Jordan Peterson which aims to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”.A list of attenders seen by Guardian Australia showed more than 50 Australians, including figures from rightwing thinktanks and churches, attending gathering staged by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc), which is associated with the Canadian psychologist and self-help book author.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…
The Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie and the Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming, along with key figures from News Corp, are to attend a UK conference led by Jordan Peterson which aims to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”.
A list of attenders seen by Guardian Australia showed more than 50 Australians, including figures from rightwing thinktanks and churches, attending gathering staged by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc), which is associated with the Canadian psychologist and self-help book author.
Deeming will miss a sitting week of state parliament to attend the event just weeks after returning to the Liberal party room.
Deeming said she had: “Organised a pair to negate my absence. This will be the first time I’ve ever missed a sitting day of parliament and is due to both personal and professional reasons.”
The Sky News Australia presenters Peta Credlin and Chris Uhlmann are listed as contributors at the conference, as is The Australian newspaper’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan. Paul Kelly, an editor-at-large at The Australian, appears on a list of attenders.
Guardian Australia contacted Sheridan and Kelly individually to ask if they were attending. A News Corp spokesperson responded simply “yes” and said Arc would cover the costs of air fares and accommodation.
Peterson claimed that the conference, to be held at the ExCeL convention centre in London’s Docklands, would see “the best slate of speakers that’s ever been assembled for any conference anywhere”.
The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, the former deputy prime minister John Anderson and the former treasurer Peter Costello are listed as speakers and contributors at the conference, to be held in London from 17 to 19 February.
They will appear alongside the leader of the UK’s Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch, the US Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and Kevin Roberts, the president of influential thinktank the Heritage Foundation and an architect of Project 2025, a policy plan for Donald Trump’s second term in office.
McKenzie and fellow Coalition frontbench senators Susan McDonald and Jonathon Duniam appear on a list of people who were registered to attend.
McDonald said it was an “honour to be invited” and it was “a shame” that she was also unable to attend due to her parliamentary commitments and pending election schedule. Duniam said he was also not going.
McKenzie said she had been invited “as a guest of the organisation”.
“We are living in deeply challenging times and I feel it is important to hear different views on how to meet those challenges,” she said.
Arc describes itself as an international movement “where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations”.
The three-day conference will “continue the vital work of re-laying the foundations of our civilisation”, the group’s website says.
Conference sessions on the main stage include discussions about energy and the environment each day. Costello, Uhlmann and Abbott are scheduled as panellists.
Abbott is a climate sceptic who has said “the climate cult will eventually be discredited” and who has long rejected the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to dangerous global heating.
Uhlmann is an outspoken critic of plans to reach net zero in Australia. He has described politicians and governments “pushing ambitious renewables targets” as “breathtakingly, stunningly energy illiterate”.
Costello is due to join failed Republican presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for a session on “free enterprise and the energy solutions that will drive growth”.
Ramaswamy, a fossil fuel advocate, has said “the climate change agenda is a hoax”.
Peterson has himself been criticised by experts for his opinions on climate models, and has described the term “net zero” as “a conspiracy run by narcissistic poseurs”.
The Nationals senator Matt Canavan and the retiring Nationals MP Keith Pitt, both big supporters of the coal industry, are listed to attend, as is the South Australia senator David Fawcett.
The NSW Liberal MP Tanya Davies and the upper house Liberal member Susan Carter appear on the list of attenders, although they did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
The former federal Liberal Senator and now Queensland state Liberal MP Amanda Stoker is also on the list. Stoker is a member of ARC’s advisory board.
Warren Mundine, the Aboriginal business figure who campaigned against the Indigenous voice to parliament, is also listed as a speaker.
Representatives from thinktanks the Centre for Independent Studies and Institute of Public Affairs are both registered as attenders, as is the conservative activist group Advance Australia.
Representatives from Australian Anglican and Catholic churches are also registered as attending, alongside the Australian Christian Lobby.