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.
