Jordan Peterson Visits Australian Parliament to Address Centre-Right MPs During Speaking Tour

A renewed conservative vision

Jordan Peterson speaks at the 2018 Student Action Summit at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 20, 2018. Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

Clinical psychologist and media personality Jordan Peterson has visited Australia’s Parliament House to deliver a speech to members of the Liberal-National Coalition and One Nation parties.

In a series of social media posts, Peterson can be seen speaking in front of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, current deputy leader of the Liberal Party Sussan Ley, Country-Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, as well as MPs Andrew Hastie and Alex Hawke.

“Democracy is about the contest of ideas. You don’t have to agree with everything that people say, but you have to be prepared to listen,” Hastie wrote.

“I enjoyed listening to Jordan Peterson make a reasoned argument in Parliament today with [Morrison, Canavan, and Price] and other colleagues and members of the Aussie public.”

Canavan is reported to have sent out invitations to MPs and staff to attend the “speaking event” held at a committee room in Parliament House, according to The Guardian.

In a Twitter post, Canavan said it was a “huge privilege” to host the media personality.

“He encouraged political leaders to fight for a coherent agenda of cheap energy, local environmental protection, holding up the nuclear family as the ideal, and encouraging individual responsibility,” he wrote.

The Liberal-National Coalition lost the recent May election to the Labor government after the flow of preferences. The defeat has forced the party to undergo much soul-searching regarding its policy platform.

A constant criticism of the Coalition during its time in power under Prime Minister Morrison was that it strayed too far from its conservative and classical liberal roots and adopted policies that would feel at home in centre-left politics, including climate change, gender equality, and direct government intervention in the economy.

In a photo on Twitter, Peterson said he spoke to the MPs about a “renewed classic liberal/conservative vision.”

Peterson is currently embarking on a speaking tour of Australia.

The psychologist wrote on Twitter that he was in Canberra to “spread my hateful message of faith, maturity, and personal responsibility among Australian politicos... :).”

Peterson Part of Conservative Revival

Peterson was recently reinstated onto Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the company, which saw several other conservative and right-leaning personalities’ accounts restored, notably former U.S. President Donald Trump.

He shot to fame over the last decade due to his views on the importance of traditional values and roles in modern society—like individual responsibility and family—while backing them up with scientific and clinical research.

During a speaking event in Anaheim, California, a high schooler asked whether they should attend college if they were felt it was not the “right fit.”

In a 15-minute response, Peterson said, “The real question is, do you not want to go [to college] because it’s the wrong fit, or because you don’t want to do the work?”

He added that if there was no better alternative to business or trade school, then the student should go to college.

In an online video that has been viewed over 10 million times, Peterson has also spoken about how young men needed to devote a part of their life towards finding their goals before they could find meaning in their lives.