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Flat White

George Christensen is a litmus test for liberal politicians

21 January 2022

9:00 AM

21 January 2022

9:00 AM

The second season of George Christensen’s political podcast, Conservative One: Pandemic Unmasked, has been extremely well received by Australians.

Campaigning in North Queensland, George Christensen faced a concerted effort by Labor, Greens, Unions, and GetUp to end his political career, but instead he increased it to a whopping 14.6 per cent.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese revealed he had been ‘riveted’ to every word George and his expert guests had said in the first week of daily episodes.

Except he didn’t like it.

Vikki Campion wrote in the Daily Telegraph, ‘In urging people not to listen to it, Albo gave it national media attention, soaring it to the top 10 Australian charts.’

Senator Matt Canavan tweeted, ‘The only thing Anthony Albanese seems to have talked about in North Queensland this week is George Christensen’s podcast. What was the point of his visit? He could have listened to that on Spotify from home.’

As the producer and publisher of George’s podcast on The Good Sauce platform (first and uncensored), I’m absolutely thrilled with the Streisand effect being lent it by Albanese, Scott Morrison, and the entire political and media class who have gotten themselves all in a tizz.

Earlier this week, Samantha Maiden forgot to warn readers with an episode spoiler alert when her headline bleated, ‘Scott Morrison has slammed a rogue Liberal National MP’s calls for parents to stop vaccinating children as “dangerous”.’

They’re clutching their pearls that someone is publishing instructions on how to make a bomb and then saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t go and see how for yourself!’ If the podcast really was as dangerous as they hyperventilated, then surely it is reckless to draw more attention to it?


‘Don’t look at the hairy, scary monster, children. I said don’t look!’

We’re a small outfit, and thanks to the elites’ insistence that ‘no one look over there’, this podcast has been one of our most widely enjoyed.

I’m not sure what Sam must make of the World Health Organisation’s similar warning, as shared by Senator Gerard Rennick.

‘There are currently no efficacy or safety data for children below the age of 12 years. Until such data are available, individuals below 12 years of age should not be routinely vaccinated.’

Hang on, wasn’t the ‘journalist’ meant to be objective and balanced, and the politician partisan? George and Gerard are better journalists than the journalists – who in turn are experts at toeing the party line.

On Wednesday a ‘journalist’ asked the Prime Minister, ‘Why have you allowed him the freedom…?’

A so-called journalist wanted to know why the leader of the government allowed a popularly elected Member of Parliament to; question the status quo (like a journalist should); survey and publish alternative views of concerned, eminently qualified experts (like a journalist should); and to critique the excesses of governments and bureaucracies around the nation (like a journalist should).

Labor’s Anthony Albanese sported a dazzling new one-liner in Mackay saying, ‘This Prime Minister is too weak to take on George Christensen.’

The Prime Minister was too weak to take on Albanese and with him, the rest of the illiberal elites. The evidence a week later was as clear as Liberal party internal poll…

‘Now, on George Christensen. I don’t think I could have been any clearer yesterday,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Don’t listen to George Christensen. He’s not a doctor. He can’t tell you what to do with vaccines. I listen to Professor Paul Kelly and their [sic] advice is children should be vaccinated. And so I would strongly encourage people not to follow that advice. Now, you know, Australia is a free country. We can’t go around locking people up for what they say as Australians. I’m sure the media wouldn’t be suggesting we’re doing that. He is allowed to speak his mind, but Australians shouldn’t be listening to him.’

As a ‘Liberal’ Prime Minister, what he should have said was that government doesn’t have all the experts or all the answers, and the best thing he can do to promote confidence in the government experts and advice is allow them to be questioned and challenged. Nobody trusts a cover-up. He should have said that telling Australians ‘what to listen to’ and ‘who to ignore’ is infantilising. Then he should have added that unlike the imperialist Left, his government would treat voters like independent thinkers, give them the best information they had, allow them room to weigh all the facts, and let them decide for themselves.

Scotty the Windsock, the leader who slavishly follows the changing winds of media and polling, also said on Wednesday that he was ‘discussing’ George Christensen’s Committee Chairman role with Barnaby Joyce. This is the definitive exercise of cancel culture, predictable from the media and authoritarian Left, but an utter betrayal of everything the ‘Liberal’ Party stands for.

Allowed the dignity of jumping before he was pushed by his smiling assassins, George has posted on Facebook that he will quit his Committee position and the $23,000 pay rise which comes with it. He graciously declared this was entirely his decision.

Unsatisfied to debate George’s ideas, uncontent to distance themselves from him, Scott Morrison is bowing to the media and cancelling George’s occupation and income, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Barnaby Joyce said Labor’s calls to have him booted from parliament were fraught with peril.

‘As soon as what you say starts amounting to a threat of removal from office, you’re in dangerous territory. If you made a direct threat about removing them from office, that’s a crime. You can’t do it, you’re not allowed to do it.’

Precisely so. George Christensen is rightly doing his job, without fear or favour. Whether his opinions and the opinions of his guests are right is something for viewers and listeners to decide for themselves after listening to them (and not simply the disingenuous regurgitation of them) as well as other ideas and data. The voters have already decided.

To threaten the integrity of our Parliament by extorting a Member to toe the ideological line should shock and horror us, but we may have become desensitised to corruptions of democracy by all levels of government and media these past few years.

George Christensen has become a litmus test, a gauge revealing the character and integrity of those who comment on him. Do they blow with the winds of populism, or do they hold fast to the first principles which should have guided us all through the initial unknowns of the Wuhan Flu?

Dave Pellowe is a Christian conservative writer and commentator, editor of The Good Sauce, and convener of the annual Church And State Summit.

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