DRIVING into Bendigo on Friday, the city's fine architecture wasn't the only thing on Christopher Monckton's mind.
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Yet having spent years attempting to spread an anti-climate science, anti-abortion and anti-multiculturalism message, he still could not avoid focusing on Bendigo's buildings.
"On either side of the roads you see excellent pieces of colonial work, always with high arched windows and cast iron edging. How nice it is to see these buildings being preserved," Monckton said.
What isn't being preserved, he alleges, is the ability to debate "significant issues" he believes confront western civilisation.
Monckton was in Bendigo to launch the Rise Up Australia Party's candidate for Bendigo West, Castlemaine's Sandra Caddy.
The pair shared common beliefs - that abortion was the reason western population was "in decline", the Muslim community's birthrate would see the "end of western civilisation" and climate science is a conspiracy of the United Nations "to create a world government".
These beliefs were aired at the campaign launch at La Trobe University's Visual Arts Centre during a two-hour presentation.
Party president Daniel Nalliah said they held the event in Bendigo because they had a "very good support base" in the area.
He said while people were entitled to religious freedom, he said Bendigo's mosque proposal was "worse than a Nazi boot camp".
About 40 people attended the campaign launch, where Monckton expressed his views that the "mainstream media" was part of a totalitarian-type scheme to shut down debate.
He said this was the reason no one would engage with his ideas.
"They say they don't want to take part in debate because that would legitimise my point of view," Monckton said.
"What is really happening, is that they don't want to be beaten in an argument by me."
Both Mrs Caddy and Mr Nalliah concurred.