George Christensen has decided he is important and, as such, is making demands accompanied by threats.
Now I am sure George views himself as some sort of crusader but closer examination shows George is really all about George.
This is the man who publicly announced during the election campaign that he would make a “personal donation” to a local charity “if he was re-elected”.
He then got very upset when others pointed out this could be perceived as buying votes and, in a huff, withdrew his offer of a donation.
Mr Christensen denied any suggestion of electoral bribery.
“Only the turtles materially benefit from my pledged donation and the last time I checked, turtles can’t vote,” he said.
“The upshot is that, to avoid any confusion over what’s in the guidelines and what’s not, I’ve had to withdraw my offer of funding to the turtle rescue service.”
What George seems oblivious to is that he made the offer contingent on him getting the popular vote.
Moving on …
George has been extremely vocal on opposing marriage equality, the Safe Schools Program, and every facet of a Muslim’s life.
He says he has done this because of his religious beliefs.
He was elected to a secular parliament to make fair laws for all but he is making decisions coloured by his chosen religion and wanting to impose his beliefs on us all. Muslims have repeatedly assured us that they are not trying to impose Sharia but George is sure as hell trying to impose his very conservative view of Christianity on everyone.
Because of Turnbull’s sellout to the RWNJs to gain the crown, followed by a wafer thin majority, George is realising he can really push this personal benefit thing.
He publicly announces that he has a letter of resignation ready to go unless the government does exactly what he says by day’s end on February 28th or he will blow the joint up, metaphorically of course.
And what crucial thing is George demanding?
An opportunity for some wealthy cane farmers in his electorate to lock in pre-orders to take advantage of record world prices on sugar.
Mr Christensen said if the Turnbull Government failed to act in the interests of cane growers, he would be politically “dead” in his electorate – and “I might not as well bother running at the next election under the LNP banner”.
In his Canberra office and in front of Mr Christensen, The Courier-Mail spoke to the Burdekin District Cane Growers president Laurence Dal Santo.
“George will not be the member for Dawson unless he gets this (code of conduct) deal … if that means he leaves the LNP and joins One Nation, then so be it,” Mr Dal Santo said.
Christensen is also a climate change denier.
It is very important to him that coal be encouraged so he can pretend it is going to provide jobs for people in his electorate. He has pushed for legislation to stop court challenges and for the government to give a billion dollars to a company that no-one else will lend to.
When he was spruiking the Abbott Point port expansion, I pointed out that the government’s own report said it would create less than 100 jobs during 1 year of construction and then 2 ongoing jobs. He promptly blocked me from commenting on his Facebook page. George likes the echo chamber of affirmation rather than any factual intrusion.
Apparently George is disgruntled that he was not given a Cabinet position. How could he be more influential? He has made our Prime Minister completely backflip on every value he ever pretended to hold.
If we see a Code of Conduct in the sugar industry, but no sugar tax which health professionals have called for but George won’t allow, and then George given any sort of promotion, we will know that Malcolm Turnbull has been completely and utterly compromised and is incapable of leading the country.
The tough man who traded blows with Trump, the man who looks billionaires in the eye (sorry, I know I keep using that line – it makes me chortle every time), is a quivering bowl of full sugar jelly with no labelling just waiting to be devoured by the sugar plum fairy.
Christensen is up himself now because he knows that he can bring down the government, I don’t understand why a man with his money does not have bariatric surgery (gastric sleeve) he came from a family in poverty, as I did, why he has become an extreme conservative, still beats me. This Turnbull govt gets into more of a shambles every day it seems to me.
Kaye, 10/10 for the title alone.
“Extreme conservatism” is a mindset that suits a certain kind of mind! Truly incomprehensible to me. Surely a great subject for someone’s Ph.D ? It seems to be based on fear, and wanting to control others, lazy intellectually and mean with money insofar as looking after or sharing with the less fortunate. . They like to cling to religions to reinforce their own self importance. Birds of feather, they join the Liberal Party (so seriously misnamed!) Or a narrowminded religious based grouping. Over arching is selfishness (narcissism) and sense of entitlement. In George’s case he was probably a bully at school and misappropriated everyone else’s lunch!
PS: It would be truly wonderful if Georgie did defect, would love to see total chaos descend, but Im sure he wont, he can see how Cory Bernardi has lost his power now he sits outside the Liberal Party. Its just made GC more powerful in his blackmailing.
Thanks, Kaye. This is my favourite bit from this morning’s papers about George and his blackmailing shenanigans: ‘”This issue is the most important one to confront me in my six years in politics and that’s why I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to get an outcome,” he told News Corp.’
SUGAR?
That’d be bigger than climate change, refugees, welfare-recipient bashing, cuts to Medicare, welfare for giant corporations in the form of massive tax cuts…
Christensen was raised Catholic. In 2014 he converted to the Antiochian Orthodox Church. His reasons are telling.
“That probably says something about me. A priest explained to me that orthodoxy does not change. What was believed at the beginning is believed now and what is believed now was believed at the beginning. Orthodoxy is not there to be changed; it’s there to change. To change people and to change the world. Anyone who wants to come into the Orthodox Church and reform it won’t be taken seriously.”
Can you last stop using the term “right wing nut jobs” and start using “Catholic cowboys sect”. It’s more accurate and may prove more beneficial in getting them booted from parliament if people think of them that way.
Kaye, I didn’t know that about Christensen. Sure explains some things.,, Gay people have always been persecuted, clean coal has always been clean, refugees have always been refused rescue…
Yeah, I laughed at the heading and agree with the article.
I’m not sure of the details of what he wants. Is this “Code of Conduct” really protectionism, but they are trying to pull a swifty by not using that word?
Christensen has has reportedly contemplated an arrangement where he would jump to the crossbench but seek to sit in on Nationals party room meetings.
That’s like a bloke leaving his wife to live with his mistress but still bringing his washing round once a week !
George, here’s a suggestion : resign by all means but resign from politics and get a real job.
Could this be about monopolist Wilmar and its gangsta contracts it has been foistering on growers to ensure its monopoly?
Kaye Lee’s opener didn’t quite make clear which side George is on, but it is true that a situation has been festering away for months involving the TNC’s behaviours. I personally found out about the issue last year on a very good ABC Landline report and stuff has turned up in the Grauniad on it also.
Elsewhere AIMers have wondered why some rural voters are turning to Hanson or more credible Indies like Katter. The truth is, the Nats are a protectionist party operating within the fierce free trade neoliberalism of the Liberals and the wedge is rupturing them.
The disconnect between the common realities and Lump O’ Lard Christensen’s agenda is too depressing to contemplate…. what sort of world do these nihilistic mongrels want?
By the way, he looked cute in his tutu, didn’t he?
Just another of the many continuous revelations of criminals at work. As I keep saying the system requires dismantling, it does not work!
Community by consensus, return responsibility to the people. With responsibility comes satisfaction and change for the betterment of all.
You mean to tell me that he’s not just crooked, he’s bent too? What a surprise.
Jaquix. I reckon he had the shit bullied out of him at school. That’s why I didn’t get his opposition to Safe Schools.
Terry2. Love the comparison.
Paulwalter. Blue is NOT his colour. I thought the electric green would have been better.
I had to look up ”Antiochian”.
”Antiochian Greek Christians, also known as Rûm, are an Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious Christian group from the Levant region. They are either members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch or the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and they are native to the Levant.”
Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious would make it a bit difficult to pick on Muslims, but whatever lets you sleep at night, georgie.
Jeez his lot make me sick. I just want to be able to sue their backsides off for taking their religious beliefs into the Chamber and voting according to them.
Waffles and jelly. Seems appropriate.
Not one word from Billy Bunter about the sexual abuse and rape of 4600 little children by religious priests and others. Sugar is more important. Hypocrite alone with Bernard, Dutton, Abbott, Brandis and a few more.
“TONY Abbott has called One Nation leader Pauline Hanson a “voice of responsibility” in the Senate while other crossbenchers hold the government to ransom over its budget repair measures. ”
No, it’s not a joke, he actually said that : having Tony’s support could do One Nation immeasurable damage from which they may never recover.
Expect an angry retort from Pauline to the effect ” I entirely reject Tony Abbott’s demeaning assertion ; I remain entirely irresponsible and opportunistic and won’t have people like Abbott spreading these lies.”
How weird is this video of Pauline and Tony “catching up”
http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-news/video-national-news/pauline-hanson-and-tony-abbotts-awkward-video-20160831-4k0vs.html
I see The Australian has an article paywalled of course about Jeanne Pratt’s reaction to Turnhull’s vicious attack on Shorten this week (the first one). Just wondered if anyone had access and could privide a link?
Strange cattle is our George,strange cattle indeed and one day he may find the courage to step out of the closet
Beating up on people only creates sympathy for them – this article will create more support for Christensen….I would have thought the media and the other radical left-wing regressives would have worked this out by now. Cory Bernardi has 18% according to GalaxyPoll (reported in The Guardian) and now his support has risen as well because of articles like this. There is nothing wrong with people having different views to you – after all, that is what diversity is all about. But the leftie elites define diversity as only views that agree with them.
The “marriage equality” being pushed by the same sex marriage proponents denies other people the right to marry who “love” their family members, or under age children, or non-human animals/things/robots, or even people who “love” themselves and want to express this by “marrying” themselves – the homosexual lobbyists refuse all these people so-called “marriage equality”. The “marriage equality” they preach is solely an emotive propaganda slogan and nothing more. Even their “love is love” slogan is more accurately “lust is lust”.
Marriage has always been a choice and it always will be. It is not a right. Even the European Union has recently acknowledged this. It is not listed as a right with the United Nations and same sex marriage was never considered necessary or desirable in the history of marriage in Australia until only the past few years after John Howard orchestrated a definition in the Marriage Act – a definition that stated the obvious and reflected the millennia-old institution of marriage (already defined under Common Law). Human Rights? Scientific facts are inherent to the material nature of the universe, but “human rights” are composed by the words of the laws which bestow those rights. There are no “human rights” out there in the universe to discover, there is only what you can get enforced in your favour in a court (a right) and those things you wish you could get enforced in your favour (an aspiration). And those aspirations are culturally and linguistically conditioned. So since when is it a human right for homosexuals to redefine the meaning of marriage to suit their relationships? Never. Every person in Australia today (including a homosexual) has the same equal right to marriage, but just because their choice of partner doesn’t meet the definition doesn’t mean their human rights are being oppressed. Those who choose a person who is already married, under 18, or a close relative also cannot marry. The homosexual’s options are exactly the same as the heterosexual’s – so choose a new partner that meets the definition, or not marry. And for the record, Howard’s rewording of the Marriage Act was done purely to reflect the standard meaning of the word marriage under Common Law, to stop activists twisting things around and using courts to destroy marriage. He didn’t change anything, it is same sex marriage activists who are trying to change things.
Marriage has always be equally available for everyone to use within it’s legal provisions and restrictions….it’s just that homosexuals don’t like the provisions and restrictions (ie. in particular, they don’t like the restriction that marriage is “solely between a man and a woman”) and so they want to remove this restriction and add the provisions to include “same sex” couples. This is not anything to do with “equality” because the Marriage Laws have always applied equally to everyone. Same sex marriage is rather redefining marriage to include same sex couples. If you look at “marriage equality” in the way that pro-SSM people are saying it, then the word “marriage” should be allowed equally to any person/people who are “in love” with anyone/anything – in other words, your “marriage equality” should remove ALL provisions and ALL restrictions to marriage otherwise the pro-SSM people themselves are being unequal in not allowing people who are “in love” to marry their way. Of course, this is not how marriage has existed through-out history – to the contrary, marriage has always been about biological parenthood. The fact that homosexuals need to say “same sex marriage” or “marriage equality” to describe homosexuals getting married instead of just using the word “marriage” by itself proves this point – people don’t assume that homosexuals are included in “marriage” and so they have to add words “same sex” or “equality” to include homosexuals.. Adding extra words to “marriage” also adds extra implications like children being raised without a father or a mother (ie. another “stolen generation”?), sexualised grooming of our young people and extra costs on society to tackle health issues specifically related to homosexuality. Same sex couples weren’t included in the definition of marriage (applied equally to everyone) because no one (including homosexuals) assumed marriage was meant to be anything other than heterosexual. It wasn’t until very recently with the push to make homosexuality acceptable that suddenly homosexuals wanted to be “married”. There is no “marriage equality” in doing so (because marriage has ALWAYS been applied equally to everyone), nor is it a “basic right” because homosexuals cannot do heterosexual marriage – their biology won’t let them. Hence, allowing homosexuals to “marry” is simply a nice sounding way to make homosexuality look acceptable and the word “marriage” becomes a meaningless word that departs from the millennia-old concept of parenthood into a completely new concept of self-gratifying love/lust/sexual attraction…..never before in the history of mankind has the word “marriage” been used this way.
Blacks, women’s voting rights, sexism and other non-choice circumstances are not the same as homosexual marriage because marriage is a choice and not a right – no government can legislate who you love and who you should marry.. All the legitimate rights that have been successfully achieved were not done so by redefining words to create an allusion of success. For example, If Blacks tried to achieve their right to freedom by redefining the word “freedom” to mean “white men are free but black men are still slaves to white men”, then you could say that everyone has “freedom” but in practice, nothing has changed. Likewise, if women voting rights were achieved by redefining the word “voter” to mean “men can vote but women cannot vote” then everyone becomes “voters”, but in practice, nothing has changed. So if homosexuals think that they are achieving a “right” by redefining the word “marriage” to include them, then even though they are called “married”, in practice nothing has changed because they are not doing the heterosexual marriage thing – they are still continuing to do their own homosexual thing – nothing has changed and the word “marriage” is trashed in the process. Nothing is achieved for making homosexuality acceptable to society by sabotaging the word “marriage” and changing it into whatever suits your purpose. Just how stupid do you think we all are by pushing such an emotive propaganda stunt on to us all like “homosexual rights”?….It’s a choice and it always will be. The homosexual advocates think that redefining the word marriage suddenly makes it a right for homosexuals to love each other and somehow be considered the same as heterosexuals, but all the “love, acceptability, equality and tolerance” that homosexuals want to achieve can be done without marriage involved and, in fact, the sabotage of marriage to redefine it a “sex-based” institution turns it into a completely different institution than what it has been for thousands of years (ie. a family-based institution). This sabotage of marriage is turning people away from homosexual ideologies and shows how manipulative and dishonest the homosexual activists are.
One day Neil might realise that the world simply does not beat to the drum of his god, but I suspect that is unlikely. Religion lets him experience the thrill of power, so I wouldn’t expect him to willingly let that go.
Neil Aitchison, do you have a ‘financial’ conflict of interest? Either ‘real’ or ‘potential’? If so, then why not declare it?
You know – be ethical. Declare you have absolutely nothing to hide. Or otherwise.
Enhance your reputation. You have the chance to win lots of friends – or lose many. The choice is yours.
Sooo, wait a minute. He converted to a fundamentalist religious ideology in 2014, from Catholicism. Notwithstanding the implication that even the Catholics don’t want him, could there be a possibility that he is now an extremist, in religious terms?
He hates religious extremists. He hates fundamentalists who wish to dictate to the world, through violence, that their message is sacrosanct. He vilifies those who subscribe to that religion, on the basis that the extremists in that religion necessarily define all those that follow it. Given the photo’s, it can hardly come as a surprise he has never looked in a mirror. This gutless (ironic, huh?) shite can only incite violence in others.
Coal is good for us. Unfortunately, it does not taste good on the palate, and the effect on our lungs ain’t too flash.
Sugar is good for us. Fortunately, it tastes good on the palate. The effect on most of our other organs ain’t too flash.
“The food star rating system was developed following an exhaustive two-year process involving detailed consultation between governments, health experts, consumer groups and food manufacturers.”
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwis75vaiZfSAhWCE5QKHRz-D5QQFgglMAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fama.com.au%2Fausmed%2Ffood-star-take-down-backfires-minister&usg=AFQjCNGVVasv1U-PA_rPrdIvyGpZRhzaUA
That was back in the day when Assistant Health Minister Nash, February, 2014, was explaining how, after all that consultation, the system was shite because she had an advisor who said otherwise. Three years forward, we’ve gone three years back.
Thank you Ms Lee, and commenters. Take care
Neil,
If “Beating up on people only creates sympathy for them” then I assume you have enormous sympathy for the Australian Muslim community who have been so unfairly targeted by people like George.
“same sex marriage was never considered necessary or desirable in the history of marriage in Australia until only the past few years after John Howard orchestrated a definition in the Marriage Act ”
I disagree. The legislators recognised that the definition of marriage was “evolving”. When the Marriage act was being drafted in 1960, the federal Attorney-General Sir Garfield Barwick at the time stated the main purpose of the legislation was to:
“Produce a marriage code suitable to present day Australian needs, a code which, on the one hand, paid proper regard to the antiquity and foundations of marriage as an institution, but which, on the other resolved modern problems in a modern way.”
Delivering the second reading speech, Attorney General Barwick said:
“… it will be observed that there is no attempt to define marriage in this bill. None of the marriage laws to which I have referred contains any such definition.”
On its passage through Parliament, Senator Gorton, who was responsible for the carriage of the Bill through the Senate, remarked:
“[…] in our view it is best to leave to the common law the definition or the evolution of the meaning of ‘marriage’ ”
“marriage has always been about biological parenthood”
Only to extremist religious people like you. For the rest of us, marriage is a partnership with someone we love.
“a nice sounding way to make homosexuality look acceptable”
And this is where you finally show your true colours. You think it’s a little bit icky don’t you. Or were you traumatised by a bad experience with pedophile clergy as a young boy as thousands of others were?
You have NO right to inflict YOUR beliefs on the rest of us Neil. All people are equal in the eyes of your god, or did you forget that bit.
PS Oh and btw, up until 1961, it was legal to marry a 12 year old girl in some states of Australia.
PPS Could I also suggest that if you want to run for parliament Neil, you might want to stop labelling people as “leftie elites”. It kind of indicates that you have prejudices that would make you unfit to govern for all.
It was also legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick, so long as it was no thicker than his thumb (rule of thumb), and it was still legal, in some states of australia, for a man to rape his wife, until as recently as 1991. Feminists fought against, and won, changes to marital laws, but Neil seems to think there has never been any political agitation around them until about five minutes ago.
Paul, best I’ve ever seen George look, I’m serious.
I don’t know the context of that photo, but I’d bet it’s something to do with belittling women.
George could take lessons from David Byrne of Talking Heads, about how to be a bloke and wear a tutu without being blindingly offensive:
Deanna, I’m not sure that George was intending to belittle women. It is my experience that lots of men and boys, particularly footballers, love to dress up in girls’ clothing given an opportunity.
“MACKAY Regional Councillor George Christensen will be centre stage with his fellow cross-dressing ballerinas in the Community Cabaret that is a part of the Festival of Arts. They are called the Ballshai Ballet.
“The Ballshai Ballet is something that has been going on for longer than I can remember. It’s part of the Olde Time Music Hall run by the Valley Theatrical Players,” he said.
The Ballshai Ballet is part of the Cellarbrations Big Top Cabaret, a three-night line-up at Queen’s Park, East Gordon Street.”
https://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/georges-tutu-debut-a-lifetime-in-tulle/277634/
Christensen is unhappy with Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce about the monopoly Wilmar International have over the eight mills they have acquired in North Queensland mainly from grower owned co-operatives :
PIONEER MILL, INVICTA MILL, MACKNADE MILL, PROSERPINE Mill, VICTORIA MILL, INKERMAN MILL, KALAMIA MILL, PLANE CREEK MILL
Wilmar International, based in Singapore now crush and control the marketing of over 50% of Queensland’s sugar crop and they set the prices.
It was always seen as a risk handing over control of a regional sugar industry from the growers to an offshore conglomerate but a rush to embrace globalisation and monetary considerations held sway.
So, what exactly does George expect Barnaby or Turnbull to do : the horse has bolted, folks !
Kaye, yes I agree and I’m all for it, which is evident by the video I added in. It’s not as simple as you’re implying though. There are lots of reasons men do femme and sometimes it is just about liking femme presentation. It can also be about challenging suppressive gender ideals, such as David Byrne in the video does. I could give more examples, Iggy Pop, Manson, Bowie. I’m a proud member of LGBT community and non gender binary myself. But some men imitate femme for comedic purposes, which I find sexist. A bit like blackface is racist. I suspect George falls into that category.
Deanna, you could be right about George, I think even he is confused about himself., This is an excerpt from an interview….
“Have you heard of the acronym MGTOW?” Christensen asks. I search my brain. Not a clue. “It stands for: Men Going Their Own Way.”
Described by youth website VICE as a form of “ideological celibacy” in which men take their opposition to feminism so far they swear off sex, Christensen says it’s a “crazy” subculture. But a revealing one, too.
“There is something permeating our culture right now that has led to a loss of identity for men in particular,” says Christensen, 38, who has had several long term girlfriends but never married.
“For centuries we have known, because of biological reasons, what our place in the world was. Men were the hunters, women the gatherers. Men were the protectors, women the nurturers.”
Then, in Christensen’s telling, women streamed into the workforce, divorce became common and male dominated manufacturing jobs moved offshore.
Neil Aitchison: You and your “Sanctuary Christian Ministries” are from and belong in the dark ages. Do you practice all verses of the bible or only those that suit you? You are a bigoted and hateful human. Being gay is NOT, I repeat NOT, a choice. How do you know you are hetrosexual? When did you realise that you were hetrosexual? Minimising the rights of ethnic people, women and anyone that you deem to be beneath you is proof that you are out of touch with reality and today’s society.
The story is in regard to the sugar industry and the idiot who wants us all to bow to the demands of a ranting 5 year old, this is his behavior. Not a page for you to put your zealot ideas onto.
The sugar industry is just another big business in distress due to the foreign trade deals that our government has thrust upon us. This has been coming for a long time, much like all our other industries that are in distress. Our jobs are literally going overseas, due to manufacturing being given away to foreign corporations. Our own government is the reason that manufacturing, wages, are so high in this country. They keep upping the ante on the cost of living thinking that we will just keep sucking it up. We can’t suck it up because we all need to afford to live and not just survive. We suffer because of big corporations who firstly don’t pay the correct (if any) taxes and secondly blame us (the consumer) for their problems.
I think that Mr Christensen needs to put his dummy back in and climb back in his cot. This is the type of behavior that makes politics in Australia ( or any country) a joke. When will Australians stop taking the bulldust and fight back? It is our right, isn’t it?
I’ve never heard of that ‘sub culture’ but it sounds like an extreme form of MRA ideology, based on his erroneous revising of history to blame women for men’s diminishing workplace status. I wonder do they swear off all sex or just with women? If only they would really go their own way.
I know of people like to say he is a closet gay but I don’t like that line of commentary. I think it’s fundamentally homophobic and illogical. Does his fear of refugees mean he secretly wants to be one himself? There are plenty of valid things to suspect him of, but being gay isn’t one of them.
I have to say I found the picture of him in the blue singlet showing off his tattoo and whip offputting but not because I thought it was homoerotic as some suggested, it was more the accompanying tweet which disturbed me
“Say hello to my little friend, hippies”
Kaye, could you explain? I don’t get it about the tweet. What does it mean?
Kate, he’d like to use violence to suppress political dissent, maybe?
I found that pic interesting. I think George is torn between wanting to be a fascist dictator and a dirty rock star.
Deanna, I still don’t get it. Is the tweet he referring to the whip?
What religion is he? Whatever it is, these Trumpations don’t do its/his cause any good
Neil just proves that the trouble with Christians marrying is that they try to push their lifestyle onto their children.
The “elite Christian lobby” ignore the views of the normal people and wish to have their views enshrined in law. They’re dangerous I tell you…
Georgie loves his sugar.
“The “marriage equality” being pushed by the same sex marriage proponents denies other people the right to marry who “love” their family members, or under age children, or non-human animals/things/robots…”
A man needs his robot.
https://thebestweddingblogever.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/robotic-love-robot-love.jpg
“I found that pic interesting. I think George is torn between wanting to be a fascist dictator and a dirty rock star.”
Spot on, Deanna @ 10.42 am.
Kaye Lee, I too was blocked from George’s official Facebook page for pointing out (with evidence) that the Adani mine’s spokesperson had admitted under oath that there would be less than 2,000 jobs available, not the 10,000 being toted by GC ad infinitum. I live in Dawson (unfortunately) and have joined other locals in the Facebook in the page ‘Blocked By George’. I’ll be sharing this there!
Helen,
The quote for Abbott Point employment…6.3.1.1 LOCAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
“After the construction phase, operating employment impacts would manifest for approximately five years in the order of two FTEs. It is envisaged that these might not be in the form of new ‘jobs’, but rather a continued stream of employment opportunity for heavy and civil construction workers and their supply chains that rely on project based work.
The construction workforce for the Project will be provided by contractors and subcontractors engaged to undertake the dredging and construction of the DMCPs. DSD acknowledges that, given the short construction timeframe, the employment opportunities associated with this Project are also short-term and will not provide the local community with sustainable, long-term employment.”
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/resources/project/abbot-point-apx/abbot-pt-eis-appendix-r-social-impact-assessment.pdf
Surprised they didn’t take George up on his offer and save him the embarrassment of having to fork out money for a charity by voting elsewhere. The last one I heard that did that was the spectacularly non-divine Sophie Mirabella who also made the charity donation conditional upon her election. Maybe the Victorians have cooler heads than the Queenslanders and tipped her out. Apart from the differing result, the pair are rabid extremists, (totally gratuitous info).
Alan
Sophie’s biggest act of pork-barrelling was the $10 million that was promised to the Wangaratta hospital only if she was re-elected.
In a Sky News public forum she said :
SOPHIE MIRABELLA: I had, had a commitment for a $10 million allocation to the Wangaratta hospital, that if elected I was going to announce the week after the election, you know that (addressing the hospital CEO). That is $10 million that Wangaratta hasn’t had because Cathy got elected.
At the time the Liberals denied it but, it marked Sophie forever as unelectable. Had it been for a sports centre or a community hall or something similar it wouldn’t have been so bad but, a hospital denied funding because the Liberal’s candidate failed to be elected is gross.
Terry and Alan, The most horrible thing about the Mirabella attempt at blackmail was that she didn’t seem to understand why it was so reprehensible, even when it was so clearly pointed out to her, and to all of us. And now, worser and worser, another Lib has failed to ‘get’ it. In fact, last week in Parliament was one attempted blackmail after another!