A maverick former Coalition MP is in for a six figure payday because he’s running for office – even though he has next to no chance of landing a position in the Senate.
George Christensen announced on Wednesday that he will stand for Pauline Hanson‘s One Nation, just days after quitting Parliament.
Mr Christensen is running on the unwinnable number three spot on Queensland‘s Senate ticket.
However, because he is running again for Parliament, Mr Christensen will get a resettlement allowance of $105,625 – six months of his base salary – when he loses.
If he had just retired he would not have got the money. His move will also boost support for Senator Hanson’s return to Parliament.
Maverick former Coalition MP George Christensen will stand for election as a candidate for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, just days after he quit Parliament
The lockdown critic and advocate of unapproved Covid-19 treatment ivermectin had previously said he was leaving Canberra after he was sidelined from the Coalition over his outspoken views.
He had held the Queensland seat of Dawson for the Liberal National Party since 2010 and caucused with the Nationals, but quit the party last week, saying it was ‘anything but conservative’.
He had previously said he wanted to spend more time with his young family, after marrying Filipino April Asuncion in 2019 and the birth of their 21-month-old daughter Margaret.
Mr Christensen will be number three on One Nation’s Queensland senate ticket. It is an unwinnable spot but he could help boost support for Senator Hanson to return her to Parliament.
‘If the only job that I do is helping Pauline get back in the Senate and maybe take a friend with her then that’s a job done,’ he said.
‘Pauline approached me and asked me whether I would re-consider leaving Parliament, whether I would consider continuing on with One Nation.
‘I did not want to run again for the seat of Dawson. That decision was made, that decision came and went. And obviously I am not, as Pauline announced.
‘But she did ask me if I would join her Senate ticket and I said yes.’
Mr Christensen had previously said he had voted for One Nation.
LNP Senator Matt Canavan said while he understood Mr Christensen might have been upset with some party room decisions, it was better to fight for change from within.
‘It is a desertion,’ he told Nine Network. ‘You don’t go off and speak to a minor party.’
It’s unclear if Mr Christensen will stand for his old seat of Dawson, with One National already having a candidate, Julie Hall, announced for that seat.
The 2019 election saw a massive 13 per cent swing to One Nation in Dawson, but he comfortably held his seat with a 22 per cent margin over second placed Labor.
However Mr Christensen could instead run for the Senate and challenge Senator Canavan, who said he took nothing for granted.
‘Ultimately you don’t have job security … It’s up to the voters,’ he said. ‘But I love a fight, I don’t shirk from a fight.’
Mr Christensen – who in 2016 posed in sado-masochistic clothes with a whip for a newspaper feature – gave a valedictory speech attacking Canberra’s ‘poodles’ and hailing ‘mongrels’ like himself.
The anti-vaxxer advocate of outlawed Covid-19 treatment ivermectin and lockdown critic had previously said he was leaving Canberra after he was sidelined over his marginal views
‘When I came to this place, someone told me about two paths that lay ahead: the path of the poodle and the path of the mongrel,’ he said.
‘They said that the poodles in politics do what they’re told, get the accolades and end up sniffing the ministerial leather right up close.
‘But nothing changes if it’s left up to the poodles. That’s where the mongrels come in.
‘Political mongrels might be mangy; they might growl when they’re grumpy, and they might soil the carpet every so often, but they bark when needed and aren’t afraid to nip issues in the bud when needed as well.
‘They keep the poodles in the ministerial leather that they’re accustomed to but are pretty much put in the ‘never to be promoted’ column.
‘It doesn’t need to be said that I took the path of the political mongrel. Political mongrels get things done.
‘For my electorate and my people, I’ve proudly been a political mongrel.’
The backbencher was briefly the Nationals Chief Whip until he resigned from the position in 2017, complaining that he was muzzled by the role in a row with then-PM Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Christensen came under scrutiny by Australian Federal Police for his repeated visits to the Philippines to visit his now wife and family which saw him dubbed the ‘Member for Manila’ by Labor.
It was revealed he had spent 294 days in the Philippines between April 2014 and June 2018.
He will announce his political return at a press conference with Pauline Hanson when she will confirm One Nation will stand in all 151 House of Representatives seats on May 21
A statement from Pauline Hanson confirmed the party will aim to be a major force at the 2022 federal election after only a restricted effort in 2019.
She said it was as a result of increased support that had increased substantially as a reaction against the Covid lockdowns during the pandemic.
‘It’s a significant step up from the 2019 election when we fielded candidates in about a third of Australian electorates,’ she said.
Mr Christensen has been a vocal opponent of Covid restrictions, and last year compared the expansion of government power through the pandemic to Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
‘The totalitarian regimes responsible for the most heinous atrocities in the 20th century didn’t get there overnight,’ Mr Christensen said.
‘In 21st century Australia, state premiers are racing down that familiar path, trying to outsmart each other, drunk on power, setting up their own biosecurity, police states completely medical apartheid.’
He added: ‘The totalitarian path, the path that we are unquestionably on, has never ended well.
‘The solution is a rediscovery of human dignity along with, and I don’t say this lightly, civil disobedience.’
The comments were denounced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
