George Christensen makes political comeback in hometown of Mackay
Controversial former Nationals MP and One Nation senate candidate George Christensen has made a political comeback in his central Queensland hometown of Mackay, winning a seat on local council.
Former Nationals MP and One Nation Senate candidate George Christensen has made a political comeback in his central Queensland hometown of Mackay, winning a seat on the local council.
The self-styled “wokebuster”, who defected from the Nationals ahead of the 2022 federal election to contest an unwinnable position on the One Nation Senate ticket, has been officially declared as a councillor after Queensland’s local government elections last month.
During Mr Christensen’s campaign, he promised to drastically cut council rates and fight “culture wars” including investigating council’s library services and whether they were distributing sexualised material to children.
“I’ve had people come to me showing me books the local library is populated with for kids that are completely and utterly inappropriate,” he said in a pre-election interview with Rebel News Australia.
“So there are a lot of problems there in that cultural war space I guess.”
A social conservative, Mr Christensen ran as part of the Mackay First team led by mayoral candidate Steve “Jacko” Jackson, with Mr Jackson presenting an upstart challenge to incumbent mayor Greg Williamson.
Mr Williamson edged out Mr Jackson with about 51.5 per cent of the vote after preferences.
The Mackay council is an undivided council, meaning there are no wards or divisions.
It is led by a mayor with 10 councillors.
Mr Christensen first entered politics as a councillor in 2004 before moving into federal politics as the Nationals member for Dawson in 2010.
He represented Dawson, which covers coastal North Queensland from Mackay in the south to Bowen and Ayr in the north, for 12 years before resigning in 2022 and announcing a shock run for the Senate in the May federal election on the One Nation ticket.
Mr Christensen – who was once dubbed “the Member for Manila” after his having taken at least 28 trips to The Philippines between 2014 and 2018 – was contacted by The Australian for comment.
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