Editorial: George Christensen is taking the piss

Most readers would agree a $117,000 salary should come with the expectation you’re dedicating yourself full time to your constituents. But George Christensen seems to think he doesn’t need to be in the country to be a local councillor.

George Christensen posted this photo of himself protesting a Pandemic Treaty by the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland on June 19, 2024 to his 'Nation First' substack page. Picture: George Christensen/Nation First

Most readers would agree a $117,000 salary should come with the expectation you’re dedicating yourself full time to your constituents.

But George Christensen seems to think he doesn’t need to be in the country to be a local councillor.

He’s now called into two consecutive council meetings remotely. He was in London for the first one, and even the mayor doesn’t know where he was on Wednesday for the special meeting to vote on a new deputy.

There’s a reason why he was called the ‘Member for Manila’ during his time as the federal MP for Dawson.

He was in the news for spending significant amounts of time overseas. This paper can’t believe he hasn’t learned his lesson from that one, and now seems to think he can serve his constituents while flying out to Geneva to protest the World Health Organisation.

Either Mr Christensen wants to be a campaigner for his Christian beliefs flying around Europe, or he wants to serve the people of Mackay. He can’t have it both ways while we all pick up the bill.

The reason why there is a register of interest is so that there’s transparency as to what could potentially have an impact on a councillor’s performance.

We gave Mr Christensen opportunity to respond and explain how he splits his time between posting to his Nation First publication (which he gets an income from), his campaigning for CitizenGo (which he gets an income from) and his constituents in Mackay.

He’s the only councillor who has a 1300 number listed instead of a personal line, and if you email his council email an automated response tells you he checks his emails once or twice a day, and prefers to meet people face-to-face.

How are you going to manage that from Europe?

This isn’t the first time Mr Christensen has failed to answer tough questions from the Daily Mercury.

When he was campaigning, we put to him that people in Mackay might believe he’s getting into politics for the pay after failed attempts to launch a career in the right-wing media sphere.

Funnily enough, he never answered that one.