McKenzie joined the National Party at the age of 18, and was a junior vice-president of
the Victorian branch from 2006 to 2009. She first stood for parliament at the
2004 federal election, unsuccessfully standing for the
House of Representatives in the
Division of McMillan. At the
2010 election, McKenzie was elected to the
Senate in the third place on a joint
Coalition ticket. Her term began on 1 July 2011. McKenzie was her party's
Senate whip from September 2013 to June 2014. She was elected deputy leader to
Barnaby Joyce in December 2017, replacing
Fiona Nash after her
disqualification from parliament due to dual citizenship. Under the terms of the Coalition Agreement with the Liberals, McKenzie was elevated to
cabinet as
Minister for Sport,
Minister for Rural Health, and
Minister for Regional Communications. When
Scott Morrison became prime minister in August 2018, McKenzie was appointed
Minister for Regional Services, Decentralisation and Local Government. She also retained the sport portfolio. McKenzie is a shooting enthusiast, and is chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting. She is opposed to
same-sex marriage, and publicly campaigned for the "No" vote in the
Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. McKenzie's gay younger brother confronted her on her views in a letter to the
Bendigo Advertiser and on the panel discussion program
Q&A. In May 2024, McKenzie called
Fatima Payman's comments "Absolutely appalling" during which Payman accusing Israel of
genocide during
Gaza war and using phrase "
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free, and asked "What’s the Prime Minister going to do with this Senator who has completely been subordinate to him?”
Minister for Agriculture As Agriculture Minister, McKenzie announced measures to protect Australia's pork industry from
African Swine Fever. On 11 December 2019 McKenzie announced $66.6 million to boost Australia's defences against the virus which has a high mortality rates in domestic
pigs. Australia's ASF Response Package saw 130 more frontline biosecurity officers deployed from January 2020 to do half a million more passenger screenings a year; six new detector dogs deployed at airports and mail centres and two new 3D x-ray machines at Melbourne and Sydney mail centres. Biosecurity officers were given a new capability to issue infringement notices on the spot at airports. On 12 September 2019, the
Australian Senate passed the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019 which introduced new offences for the incitement of trespass, property damage, or theft on agricultural land. McKenzie said the Bill sent a clear message that
animal activists who use the personal information of farmers to incite trespass risked jail. “Australians expect the farmers who feed and clothe us – and many millions around the world – should not be harassed, or worse, as they go about their work. The time has come for activists to understand that you can’t just descend on someone’s place of work and home, interfere with their business and steal their animals—and think that you can get away with it. When protests become acts of trespass and theft, you’re not a protestor, you’re a criminal and deserve to be punished." Australia's peak agricultural body the
National Farmers Federation welcomed the new laws and said the Bill sent a clear signal to anti-farming activists that the invasion of farms and harassment of farmers, their families and workers, running lawful businesses, would not be tolerated. In December 2019, McKenzie announced Australia's first national Mandatory Dairy Industry Code of Conduct. A Mandatory Dairy Code was a key recommendation of the
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's 2018 Dairy Inquiry and its introduction was welcomed by the ACCC and greeted with almost universal approval from farmer bodies. Among provisions the code unveiled by Minister McKenzie included were that: all parties must deal with each other fairly and in good faith; bans retrospective step-downs; stops processors from making unilateral changes to agreements; bans processors from withholding loyalty payments to farmers if a farmer switches processors; and Introduces a dispute resolution process for matters arising under or in connection with agreements.
Regional Deal During a historic address to the
Australian National Press Club on 20 March 2019 broadcast from her home town of
Wodonga when the Minister for Regional Services, Sport, Local Government and Decentralisation, McKenzie announced a pilot Regional Deal for
Albury-Wodonga. It was the first cross-border deal, involving state and local governments from NSW and Victoria, ever made and aimed to harmonise some of the regulatory barriers faced by these two cities to drive more growth and productivity locally. The federal, NSW and Victorian governments, and Albury and Wodonga councils agreed to sign the statement of intent on 6 July 2020. Hers was the first time the nationally broadcast address was hosted outside a capital city, and McKenzie used the occasion to focus on the opportunity regional Australia offered for national economic growth, saying regional Australia was a place of opportunity with unlimited potential. after the release of a report by the
Commonwealth auditor-general which found that a $100 million sports grant program she oversaw in the lead-up to the 2019 Australian federal election was administered in a way that "was not informed by an appropriate assessment process and sound advice". The auditor-general's report noted that it was not clear what the legal authority for the particular allocation of grants was. A disproportionately high percentage of funds were allocated to sporting clubs in marginal
Coalition electorates. One Adelaide rugby union club was awarded a $500,000 grant under the scheme for new female change rooms, despite not fielding a women's team since 2018 when it was embroiled in a sexism controversy. The club, located in the marginal Coalition-held seat of
Sturt, was awarded the scheme's maximum available grant just weeks before the election. A football club in the marginally held Coalition seat of
Brisbane was given $150,000 for a project that had already been funded. More than $1 million in grants were allocated to sports clubs with links to clubs Coalition MPs as members or patrons: three linked to Indigenous affairs minister
Ken Wyatt, one tied to treasurer and deputy Liberal leader
Josh Frydenberg, and two associated with senator
Sarah Henderson. Nationals leader Michael McCormack's son's football club in the NSW Riverina also received a $147,000 grant under the program. In some cases, the funds were presented as oversized novelty cheques by the Liberal candidate for the seat in question, rather than by the sitting member. In a submission to a Senate Select Committee on Administration of Sports Grants, McKenzie stood by her Ministerial discretion which "saw grants distributed more evenly by state, region, sport, organisation type and funding stream than if the recommendations of Sport Australia or the methodology seemingly favoured by the Auditor-General were adopted".
Calls for resignation The Opposition called for McKenzie to resign from the federal ministry because of the bias in the funding allocated. She maintained that "no project that received funding was not eligible to receive it" and that "no rules were broken in this program". The Leader of the Opposition
Anthony Albanese stated that what McKenzie had done "fails every test" and she must be sacked. In 1993,
Ros Kelly, the Labor Sports Minister in the
Keating government resigned under almost identical circumstances in what came to be known as the
Sports Rorts affair. More than 70 per cent of
Australian Financial Review readers who participated in an online poll said that McKenzie should resign over the scandal.
Government response The government steadfastly supported McKenzie throughout the scandal.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Michael McCormack,
Peter Dutton and other high-profile Coalition ministers repeatedly spoke out in her defence. Following the revelation that McKenzie awarded a $36,000 grant to a regional Victorian shooting club without declaring that she was a member, on 22 January 2020 Morrison referred the report of the Commonwealth Auditor-General to the Secretary of the
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for advice in relation to the conduct of ministerial standards. On 29 January, Morrison attempted to distance himself from the scandal after being asked questions at a National Press Club meeting. Morrison was asked why his office had approved an extra $42.5 million for the sports grants scheme in March 2019, but did not explain. The report by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet determined that McKenzie had breached the ministerial code of conduct and, on 2 February, she tendered her resignation as Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of her party. She remained as leader of the Nationals in the Senate, along with
Matt Canavan as deputy, as the other 3 Nationals senators were first-termers.
Return to Cabinet Following
a Nationals leadership spill in July 2021, in which
Barnaby Joyce replaced
Michael McCormack as party leader and Deputy Prime Minister, McKenzie was returned to Cabinet, and appointed as Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience and Minister for Regionalisation, Regional Communications and Regional Education. She remained in these ministerial positions until the Coalition lost the
2022 federal election in May 2022.
In Opposition McKenzie was appointed Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development in the Peter Dutton-led Coalition Opposition. In addition, McKenzie serves on the Appropriations, Staffing and Security Senate Standing Committee, and the Procedure Senate Standing Committee. In McKenzie’s view, the pressure Morrison applied to Holgate to induce her to step down in the wake of critical media reports fatally damaged the perception of the Coalition amongst professional and, even, conservative women. McKenzie has been actively working to repair this relationship as part of a strategy to return the Coalition to power at the next federal election. Following the Coalition's defeat at the
2025 election, McKenzie retained her role as the National Party's Senate leader. She publicly criticised Senator
Jacinta Price for her defection from the Nationals to the Liberal Party after the election. McKenzie supported National Party leader
David Littleproud's decision to withdraw the party from the Coalition in May 2025, following an initial failure to reach an agreement over terms of the alliance. She had reportedly earlier written to
Michaelia Cash, the Liberal Party's Senate leader, threatening to suspend co-operation in the Senate in response to Price's defection. In January 2026, following a recall of parliament to vote on the
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026, McKenzie resigned from the
Ley shadow ministry after crossing the floor to vote against the official
Liberal–National Coalition position on the hate speech law.
Qantas Inquiry McKenzie became Chair of the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements (popularly referred to as the Qantas Inquiry) on 5 September 2023. The Senate established this inquiry in the wake of Labor Transport Minister Catherine King’s decision to decline
Qatar Airways’ request for additional capacity into Australia. This decision prompted significant consternation in sections of the Australian electorate due to elevated airfare prices, particularly on the high demand Europe route, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts specifically attributed the increase in airfares to “an imbalance between demand and supply,” which could have been partially meliorated by the increase in capacity proposed by Qatar Airways. ==Other controversies==