George Christensen’s antics have backfired

Dawson MP George Christensen in Townsville after the announcement of a banking royal commission.

What an extraordinary context we’ve had for the penultimate Newspoll of 2017.

Finding out that Nationals MP George Christensen was concocting chaos to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull, amplified by Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin. And he was collaborating with Cory Bernardi, the leader of the Australian Conservatives.

Christensen’s double-game should leave a foul taste in the mouths of all journalists, not to mention his parliamentary colleagues.

The irony of Christensen’s antics is that they backfired, leaving him looking weak and no doubt now in Bolt’s crosshairs. Bolt feels misled, which is understandable. In truth Christensen simply proved to be full of hot air, using the banking royal commission as his excuse for not following through with his threat.

If the unveiling of Christensen’s antics to damage the PM isn’t enough to stoke a little unity in government ranks, nothing will.

Bolt says Christensen told him he’d authorised Credlin to “spread the word”. As a strident critic of Turnbull she did just that, telling David Speers on Sky News that an MP had told her exactly what Bolt was reporting.

The Nationals MP even managed to stuff up his efforts to cause chaos — a rare skill I didn’t think possible. He’s helped strengthen Turnbull and unite his colleagues behind him. He’s exposed himself as a wrecker unworthy of holding representative office. He’ll now find it even harder to hold his Queensland seat of Dawson at the next election than otherwise would have been the case.

While Turnbull will be pleased that the game-playing of some media participants and one of his MPs has been exposed, it speaks to the nature of our modern political and media culture. Too many political participants are masquerading as impartial observers. Too many politicians spend their time destabilising.

While accusations of participation in plots to bring down politicians are often directed at journalists, I’ve never before seen such claims proven or spelled out.

Efforts to blast Turnbull out before the year’s end — driven by bitterness and a bid for inaccurate predictions of his 2017 demise to be proven correct — have backfired. He’s back comfortably in front of Shorten as preferred PM, his net satisfaction rating has improved, the Coalition’s primary vote is up, as is the two-party vote, and this week marriage equality will pass through the parliament.

While the clock ticks towards 30 consecutive Newspoll fails (now at 24 in a row), if the government shows even a modicum of unity the summer just might see a political recovery for the Coalition.

If not, keep your eyes out in 2018 for Turnbull’s detractors to concoct new ways to try to bring him undone.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and foundation chair of journalism at the University of Western Australia.