At least one member of the National Party believes that George Christensen – the northern Queensland politician best known for bizarre rants against greenies and climate change – has what it takes to be the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
And that one member is George Christensen… who put himself forward as a surprise candidate in the National’s leadership ballot this morning, after the resignation of Barnaby Joyce last week amid the growing scandal surrounding his affair with media adviser Vikki Campion.
Over the weekend, Deputy Nationals Leader Bridget McKenzie had publicly called on party members to show unity and fall behind a single candidate. Christensen obviously didn’t get that memo.
When it came time for the Nationals party room to vote, David Gillespie – the main opponent to frontrunner Michael McCormack – withdrew from the race. And then Christensen popped up, forcing a ballot.
A short time ago, Nationals Whip, Michelle Landry faced the Canberra press gallery to announce that McCormack had won the ballot. She also refused to say what the voting result was.
“What happens in the party room stays in the party room,” Landry said, which is of course ridiculous – it’s only a matter of time before the result leaks out. Smart money is on ‘1 vote for George Christensen, all the other votes for Michael McCormack’.
Christensen has a knack for thrusting himself into the media limelight. A week ago, in the shade of the Florida school shooting in America, Christensen posted a photo of himself to Facebook with a pistol, and the caption ‘You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?’
It prompted people to write to Greens politician Sarah Hanson-Young with the odd death threat.
Received this email tonight from George Christensen suporter. Classy. pic.twitter.com/jPXJEYuta9
— Sarah Hanson-Young💚 (@sarahinthesen8) February 18, 2018
Over the weekend, Christensen also called for an end to the Coalition.
He holds the honour of being the only non-cabinet politician to make the Top 10 of New Matilda’s recent ‘Dirty 30’ – a poll of the politicians NM readers most love to hate.
In any event, the new Deputy Prime Minister of Australia – a former newspaper editor – once wrote this, in 1993 in his column in the Wagga Advertiser.
Dear readers,
A week never goes by anymore that homosexuals and their sordid behaviour don’t become further entrenched in society.
Unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay.
On Monday hundreds of thousands of homosexuals marched through Washington in a demonstration intended to show their demands for equal rights and an end to discrimination should no longer be ignored or denied.
How can these people call for rights when they’re responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?
AIDS shows no discrimination.
It claims thousands upon thousands of innocent people’s lives every year.
On the very night of the homosexuals’ march that pompous critic Stuart Littlemore on Media Watch on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation had the gall to criticise various newspaper editors across Australia for “gay bashing”.
He ridiculed them for showing some moral backbone and condemning homosexuality.
It’s just as well some newspapers are speaking up and acting as watchdogs on moral issues. If it was left up to the likes of Littlemore, heaven knows some of the all-embracing attitudes society would be told it was OK to accept.
McCormack has since apologised for the column, and voted in support of same-sex marriage. Even so, it’s a brave new world, Australia.