LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: A new political party has set its sights on this year's federal election and its policies are turning heads.

The Rise Up Australia Party is the brainchild of Christian preacher Daniel Nalliah.

He's anti-Islamic, claims to have raised people from the dead and once blamed the Black Saturday bushfires on Victoria's abortion laws.

Today he launched his new party with help from renowned climate change sceptic Lord Monckton.

Hayden Cooper reports.

HAYDEN COOPER, REPORTER: Canberra's National Press Club has seen more than a few political launches, but rarely are they this exuberant.

DANIEL NALLIAH, SENATE CANDIDATE: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

AUDIENCE: Oi, oi, oi!

DANIEL NALLIAH: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

AUDIENCE: Oi, oi, oi!

HAYDEN COOPER: This group of flag wavers call themselves the Rise Up Australia Party and this man is their excitable leader.

DANIEL NALLIAH: The silent majority of Australia finally has a party which will speak the words that they're thinking in their minds and is sunk in their hearts. They're looking for someone to champion the cause to protect Australia.

HAYDEN COOPER: Daniel Nalliah's party of 1,500 members wants to keep Australia Australian. Their guest speaker at the launch, an Englishman.

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON, GUEST SPEAKER: G'day, Australia!

(Applause from audience)

HAYDEN COOPER: Lord Christopher Monckton, the British climate change sceptic and frequent visitor, has latched on to the Rise Up Australia cause.

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON: It is not for me as a Brit to endorse any Australian political party, ... but I'm going to anyway.

(Applause from audience)

HAYDEN COOPER: He's here to promote Daniel Nalliah in his quest to enter the Senate.

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON: Is Pastor Danny going to Canberra?

AUDIENCE (in unison): Yeah!

HAYDEN COOPER: Pastor Danny, as he's known to some, is a magnet to controversy. The founder of the evangelical Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries, he's most well-known for his strident anti-Islamic views, opposing the construction of mosques and fighting Victoria's racial vilification laws in court.

DANIEL NALLIAH (2005): We have a choice, nation of Australia: we either can follow the Koran and follow Islamic sharia law and be slaves in this nation or follow the Bible and be a free and democratic society.

HAYDEN COOPER: Now, as a Senate candidate, he spies one overarching problem in Australia.

DANIEL NALLIAH: The multiculturalism for me is the biggest threat right now for Australia's future. Now what I'm saying is tolerance is a key landmark for multiculturalism. But tolerance pushed to the limit to the place of the host country having to sacrifice their own rights, that's when it comes to a place where we say enough is enough.

HAYDEN COOPER: Pastor Nalliah's fear is radical Islam and sharia law.

DANIEL NALLIAH: But, please, do not come and tell me or our nation that, "Your laws are not good enough for us. We want Islamic sharia law, a separate legal system." Sorry, that's the time we show the doorway and say, "There's a free passage for you. You go back to where you came from," because Australia will not ...

(Applause from audience)

HAYDEN COOPER: What do you say to those people who accuse you of being anti-Islamic?

DANIEL NALLIAH: I think they will be right. I'm not anti-Muslim. I'm anti some of the teachings of Islam in the Koran, but I love the Muslim people.

HAYDEN COOPER: Are you practising and encouraging religious discrimination?

DANIEL NALLIAH: To be politically correct, that would be an answer, yes, that's what people will say. But I want to be politically incorrect and say I want to confront this issue head-on. How long are we going to let the fear and intimidation continue?

HAYDEN COOPER: You'll tolerate any other religion, but Islam you won't tolerate.

DANIEL NALLIAH: Let me put it this way: we tolerate all other religions; Islam, I'm concerned.

HAYDEN COOPER: In 2009, Daniel Nalliah again hit the headlines after linking Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires with that state's abortion laws. He said he'd had a prophetic dream about a fire when the laws were passed. And even today, he still makes a divine connection to the disaster that killed 173 people.

DANIEL NALLIAH: Was nothing like what you have experienced before, what we experienced after. And I hope and pray there will never be another one like that.

HAYDEN COOPER: What do you put it down to?

DANIEL NALLIAH: That particular bushfire, if you're referring to - I hope and pray that it's not the case, but I believe with all my heart that it is the dream that I had. That we as Christians did not stand in the gap and pray and cry out to God for protection over our nation.

HAYDEN COOPER: On abortion laws, his new supporter Christopher Monckton is an equally feisty advocate.

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON: And just because you and the ABC think it's OK to dismember and torture and kill little children of our own species without even giving them an anaesthetic first, you mustn't go round getting angry with them because they disagree with you.

HAYDEN COOPER: To his supporters, Daniel Nalliah is something of a messiah. In fact he even claims to have prayed for and resurrected three dead people in his preaching career. Now, with a theme song done and a new backer from abroad, he's hoping the enthusiastic zeal transfers to the ballot box.

Within the Rise Up Australia Party, Christopher Monckton has found a group of Australians who embrace his alternate views and they're not afraid to show it. In Christopher Monckton, this fledgling political party has found a fellow traveller, a man they hope will bolster their modern-day crusade.

The British guest speaker insists he's not associating himself with all of Daniel Nalliah's views, but even so, for those who question him or his new friend, there's short shrift.

CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON: Go and do your job and stop trying to pick nits when somebody like Pastor Danny, whose intentions are manifestly kindly, is thought to have something that you can have some fun with. Come on, grow up.

LEIGH SALES: Hayden Cooper reporting.