58 Facts About George Christensen

1.

George Robert Christensen was born on 30 June 1978 and is an Australian former politician and former journalist who was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 2010 to 2022, as the member of parliament for the division of Dawson.

2.

George Christensen was a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sat with the National Party in federal parliament, prior to leaving the party in April 2022 to join One Nation, just days before the end of his parliamentary term.

3.

George Christensen is the eldest son to two disability pensioners.

4.

George Christensen joined the Young Nationals at the age of 15 and was state president of the Queensland Young Nationals from 2003 to 2004.

5.

George Christensen was schooled in Andergrove, Walkerston and at Mackay State High before completing an undergraduate communications degree in journalism at Central Queensland University in Rockhampton in 2000.

6.

When he was 21 years old, George Christensen briefly attended a seminary in Melbourne with the intention to become a Catholic priest.

7.

However, when his father "pointedly objected," George Christensen chose not to pursue it.

8.

In 2004, George Christensen was elected to Mackay City Council as a councillor, and in 2008 gained a seat on the amalgamated Mackay Regional Council.

9.

George Christensen was a director of the Mackay Regional Housing Company and Vice-President of Mackay Regional Council for Social Development.

10.

George Christensen was the foundation chair of Walkerston Community Kindergarten Association and former chair of HACC Transport Mackay Inc.

11.

George Christensen ran as the LNP candidate for the seat of Dawson at the 2010 federal election.

12.

George Christensen won the seat with a 5.02-point swing on a two-party-preferred vote with a margin of 2.43 points.

13.

George Christensen gained national media attention during the election campaign for articles published by George Christensen in the 1990s in The Student Advocate, a conservative university newsletter.

14.

In July 2011, George Christensen joined other Liberal National Party MPs in driving the entire Bruce Highway as part of a campaign to highlight problem areas on the road and to secure more funding for the Bruce Highway from the Commonwealth.

15.

In June 2011 George Christensen drew criticism from fellow MPs for his manner of attack on Labor's shutdown of the live cattle trade to Indonesia.

16.

George Christensen implied that Indonesia's religion is to blame for the torture of common cattle and that Australian farmers should not receive criticism for Indonesian mistreatment of live cattle exported to the nation.

17.

George Christensen launched a campaign in October 2012 to persuade the producers of science fiction television series Doctor Who to film the program in Australia in celebration of the 50th anniversary of its first screening on Australian television on 12 January 2015.

18.

In November 2015, George Christensen again called for the bringing back of the death penalty.

19.

George Christensen publicly encouraged Americans to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 US election.

20.

Days before the election, George Christensen issued a plea on Facebook for Americans to "do the rest of the free world a favour" and vote for Trump.

21.

In February 2017, Cory Bernardi and George Christensen attracted criticism for speaking at the Q Society of Australia.

22.

George Christensen resigned as the Nationals' Chief Whip, effective from 1 March 2017, reasoning that being whip is untenable for 'the person that's supposed to be a standard bearer of discipline within the party to be out there talking against some of the Government policies as strenuously as I have been'.

23.

One Nation has not run a candidate in the division of Dawson since George Christensen won the seat George Christensen voiced his concern in 2016 that he would quite possibly lose his seat if One Nation placed a candidate against him.

24.

George Christensen voted for One Nation in the 1998 Queensland election.

25.

George Christensen repeatedly threatened to resign from the LNP, and in February 2017 wrote a "letter of demand" to the Prime Minister in relation to inaction by the Federal Government to resolve a sugar industry dispute affecting his electorate.

26.

In February 2020, George Christensen travelled to the UK with fellow MP Andrew Wilkie to meet Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, while calling for Assange to be released.

27.

George Christensen served on the "Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000 year old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia", which delivered its interim report in December 2020.

28.

In May 2021, several news sources reported that George Christensen asked the Liberal National Party to disendorse him, which would have allowed George Christensen to pocket a severance payment of over $100,000.

29.

In January 2022, contrary to scientific consensus, George Christensen called for Australian parents to not vaccinate their children against COVID-19, prompting the Prime Minister to urge Australians to 'disregard' George Christensen's 'dangerous messages.

30.

On 7 April 2022, George Christensen announced his resignation from the Liberal National Party "effective immediately", just days before the election was called, claiming the party was trying to be "all things to all people".

31.

On 12 April 2022, George Christensen announced he had joined Pauline Hanson's One Nation and rescinded his retirement to contest the election.

32.

George Christensen was criticised for being in the Philippines for more days than he was in Parliament House for two years in a row, taking 28 trips there between 2014 and 2018.

33.

George Christensen was criticised for using taxpayer funds for domestic flights which connect with his Manila flights for these visits, and referred himself to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority to prove that this was within the rules.

34.

In 2019, George Christensen, now dubbed by his colleagues and the media as the "Member for Manila", blocked the release of the AFP travel inquiry documents.

35.

In 2020, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull released details in his memoir of the 2018 police investigation into Christensen's travel to the Philippines, accusing George Christensen of spending up to 100 days a year overseas on full pay while staying in seedy hotels in Angeles City, the red-light district of the Philippines.

36.

Turnbull alleged that the AFP told him George Christensen was spending "substantial sums in Manila bars and nightclubs as well as making many small payments to women there".

37.

Turnbull alleged that George Christensen threatened him via the dissolving message app, Signal, saying "'remember two words: parliamentary privilege; and two more years of it".

38.

Turnbull states that George Christensen's "hypocrisy" made him "sick" - as George Christensen claimed to be a devout Christian.

39.

In July 2014, George Christensen likened climate change to science fiction in a series of comments comparing contemporary statements about climate change to science fiction movie plotlines.

40.

In September 2014, George Christensen labeled Greenpeace and other environmentalists as terrorists, stating that they are "gutless green grubs" for opposing the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal in his electorate.

41.

George Christensen endorses the climate denial position taken by fellow conservative Member of Parliament, Craig Kelly.

42.

In February 2013, George Christensen was the only federal MP to attend a rally featuring controversial Dutch politician and anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders during his tour of Australia.

43.

In September 2014, George Christensen called for a ban on the wearing of the burqa.

44.

In November 2014, George Christensen claimed in an online opinion piece that halal certification was "outrageous" and a "religious tax".

45.

George Christensen claimed that it is "entirely feasible" to think some halal certifiers could be financing groups such as Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood.

46.

On 19 July 2015, George Christensen stated in a speech at a Reclaim Australia rally in Mackay that it was "foolishly naive to think that" Australia was not "at war with radical Islam".

47.

On 20 September 2017, George Christensen moved a motion to ban the burqa at the National Party's annual conference in Canberra.

48.

The motion was voted down 51 votes to 55, with George Christensen saying he would continue to advocate for the policy.

49.

George Christensen has a couple of times appeared on alt-right media.

50.

In September 2020, it was reported that George Christensen was on "The Unshackled", another alt-right media group.

51.

George Christensen holds an ostensibly anti-abortion stance and has criticised all factions of parliament, including his own party, for funding local and international services which provide abortion.

52.

George Christensen was an outspoken critic of the Queensland Labor Party's successful effort to decriminalise abortion in 2018 and encouraged members of the public to oppose the reforms at numerous public rallies throughout early 2018.

53.

George Christensen is a vocal critic of the Australian government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

54.

George Christensen was quickly censured by the opposition, the government, and the House of Representatives voted unanimously in favour, including his own party.

55.

George Christensen repeated his call for an end to lockdowns in the Australian federal parliament on 23 August 2021.

56.

George Christensen caught COVID in April 2022 and self-administered ivermectin which is not an approved treatment for COVID in Australia.

57.

In 2019, George Christensen married April Asuncion, whom he met in the Philippines in 2017.

58.

The media outlets alleged that George Christensen's wife was an employee at Ponytails.