Being inflammatory doesn’t make you relevant

IN a political career untrammelled by achievement, George Christensen has turned instead to internet trolling, writes Paul Syvret. There is lighthearted, and then there is being an arsehat.

NATIONAL Party headquarters; Saturday afternoon: “What the bloody hell can we do to get Barnaby and the ‘Beetrooter’ headlines off the front page?”

George Christensen: “Hold my pie ...”

And so it came to pass that Christensen, federal member for the seat of Dawson which stretches from Mackay in central Queensland to just south of Townsville, decided to channel his inner Clint Eastwood.

This manifested itself in a Facebook post with a picture of a heavily perspiring George squinting along the barrel of a handgun, with the accompanying caption: “You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?”

Putting aside for a minute that there is little chance of George ever being mistaken for Inspector Harry Callahan of Dirty Harry fame, and that Callahan was a violent, misanthropic anachronism even in 1971, there is the small question of timing.

George’s handgun stunt — “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he sweat six litres or only five’?” — came just a couple of days after yet another high school massacre in the United States, in which a shooter left 17 people (mostly children) dead in Florida.

Those kids are still being buried as we speak.

While the rest of the world was once again talking about the need for gun control, George was waving his manhood extender about on social media as a prop to make a political point.

George Christensen being a boofhead on Facebook.

As the not unpredictable backlash erupted, George then edited his post to: “You gotta ask yourself, do you have a sense of humour, greenie punks? Obviously not”, and gloated about his trolling effort having the desired effect of “triggering” lefties and greenies.

It also triggered a few of his own supporters by giving the more odious end of the loon pond a licence to open fire themselves.

Green Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, for example, received the following email on Sunday afternoon: “Subject: Bullets. Message: Hopefully George has one left in the chamber to fire directly into your vagina you hysterical f---ing c---.”

Charming. And I wish the Australian Federal Police godspeed with their inquiries.

George meanwhile took down the post, and blamed Hanson-Young and Greens leader Richard Di Natale for “sending their green Left followers into apoplexy about my tongue-in-cheek Dirty Harry photo”.

There is lighthearted, there is tongue-in-cheek and there is just plain boofheaded, though on past form I wouldn’t be surprised to see the ham-fisted harlequin decide to mark White Ribbon Day by wearing an OJ Simpson T-shirt.

Pause for a moment and consider a slightly different scenario.

Swap George’s ample presence in that social media post for that of a man of Arabic appearance, with a handgun, and then instead of a threat aimed at greenies, insert “infidels” or “unbelievers”.

Would George see the funny side of that even if the post was just “light-hearted”?

Yeah, nah. In fact in a political career otherwise untrammelled by achievement, he has been a tireless keyboard warrior when it comes to railing about immigration and all things Islam.

Consistency, you see, is not exactly George’s strong suit.

This is, after all, the devout Christian (right down to a tattoo of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus on his right arm) who trenchantly opposed marriage equality, yet when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled his Ministerial sex with staffers ban in the wake of Beetrootergate said “the bonk ban is bonkers”, adding, with a straight face, that no one cares “who is shagging who”.

George Christensen wasn’t keen to accept criticism of his Facebook post suggesting environmentalists should be shot, but was quick to suggest Yassmin Abdel-Magied to sacked for a post about ANZAC Day. (Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP)

This is the same thundering force of mediocrity who yesterday dismissed his social media japery as just being “flippant”, but last year was demanding the SBS sack presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied for a post about ANZAC Day.

Look, I have no great problem with, or fear of, responsible use of and ownership of firearms.

As a child who spent a fair bit of time in north west Queensland, I was taught to handle a rifle from an early age.

Guns, my father drilled into me, were not toys, but tools that sometimes had to be used and used carefully — in our case perhaps for getting rid of wild dogs or pigs sniffing about a remote campsite.

As an inner city resident I have no need for one and my ever-deteriorating eyesight (thank you 30-plus years of staring at computer monitors), means any form of sporting marksmanship would be a range too far.

I’m fairly sure though that farmers, professional and sporting shooters would view guns in similar fashion; and that is as something to be treated carefully and with the utmost respect, not used as part of a mise en scene staged to attack political opponents.

Maybe George thinks being deliberately inflammatory and insensitive somehow equates to relevance.

Either that or the National Party is having some weird and very public competition to see who can make the biggest arsehat of themselves in any given week.

Paul Syvret is a Courier-Mail assistant editor.

@PSyvret