Lead candidate for NSW Sophie York, and Riccardo Bosi, will meet with local supporters at Sporties Dubbo from 7pm.

A barrister, naval legal officer, university lecturer and national spokesperson for Marriage Alliance, Ms York is based in Sydney but said it wasn’t fair to assume the issues that dominated the recent Wentworth byelection – “rainbow issues”, “climate issues” and whether or not to move the Australian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem – were priorities for regional voters.

“I think that, in Dubbo, those issues are not the priority so it’s very important to leave Sydney and find out what matters in the regions and in rural areas. Definitely,” Ms York said.

The Australian Conservatives were founded by South Australian senator Cory Bernadi in 2017.

Ms York – a long-term member of the Liberal party – joined in February after becoming disenfranchised with the Liberal party’s direction.

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She said her new party aimed to implement “good policy for the Australian people” on issues like national security, border protection, immigration levels, and the “reliability of electricity without having it cost a bucket load”.

“What we’ve picked up is that people are concerned about the rate [of immigration]; there’s about 190,000 arriving in Australia each year … and it’s very hard to keep up the infrastructure in the cities,” Ms York said.

“The Conservatives say we should halve that figure.

“I’m very interested in seeing how Dubbo people feel about that, given that one of the government’s [proposed] conditions on visas is to make people settle in regional areas. I wonder whether Dubbo people would welcome or want that.”

Ms York also pledged to “push back against political correctness which is getting out of hand”, and questioned Australia’s emissions reduction target saying the “Paris agreement would actually be terrible for Australia’s prosperity”.

“One of the reasons we’re such a rich country is because we sell $57 billion worth of coal to the world each year,” Ms York said.

“If they’re able to burn it then why shouldn’t we?”

She was concerned Australian school children were being taught “grievance studies” in relation to the country’s colonial history, instead of “true history”.

“We are actually one of the richest, happiest, most stable countries in the world but this is all being put at risk … they’re trying to re-write history,” Ms York said.

She conceded “that the introduction of alcohol and certain diseases… had a poor effect” on Indigenous Australians, but said “now we’re 200 years down the track”.

“The original founders can’t be held responsible for their decisions by people around today,” Ms York said.

“I absolutely have a lot of sympathy for the problems they are experiencing, but I don’t want to have low expectations of Indigenous people.

“People shouldn’t just assume that just because people are Indigenous that they don’t have the same goals and dreams and the capacity to achieve those dreams.”

She warned activists “don’t speak for the everyday Indigenous person”, and “sometimes have an axe to grind”.

“The average Indigenous person wants to have a happy life and not be constantly told to have a chip on their shoulder,” Ms York said.

“Telling people that they are a different skin colour or race, that's just a way to divide people.

“Australians now, at this stage in their history, just love the richness of the Indigenous heritage … I think people are very proud of our Indigenous heritage and that it sits besides the British one in a very happy way.”