Christensen going his own way, unsuited to whip’s job

Mr Christensen issued a statement today saying he’d resigned as Chief Whip of the Nationals, effective 5pm on Thursday, March 2.

“I made the decision to resign because my continued outspokenness on a variety of issues was obviously incompatible with the position of Party Whip in the long term,” he said.

“It was my decision to resign and my decision alone - I was not pushed by anyone.

“However I did feel some of my colleagues may have been aggrieved that the enforcer of discipline was being somewhat ill-disciplined himself.”

Mr Christensen has been outspoken on core issues impacting farmers in his electorate while raising threats to quit the party, including during the recent spat between sugar cane producers and foreign owned marketing company Wilmar.

Speculation also suggests his decision to quit as whip is linked to a potential plan to cross the floor and support a Royal Commission into banking which may also focus on issues concerning rural debt.

It’s understood Victorian Nationals MP Damian Drum is likely to replace Mr Christensen in the whip’s post at a party room vote Thursday, with the first term federal MP already regarded for playing a prime role boosting team morale, within his party’s inner ranks.

NSW Nationals MP Mark Coulton was the Nationals’ whip for six years before he was elevated to Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, after last year’s federal election, giving Mr Christensen the whip’s role.

Mr Coulton said Mr Christensen had made his own decision to stand down as whip so, “I’m not going to be overly critical”,

He said all members of parliament had pet issues that are very important to their electorates but can’t continually threaten to cross the floor or sit on the crossbenches because they don’t get their way each time.

Mr Coulton said such ongoing threats only reflected poorly on the government and it threatened public support, “if they think you’re not united”.

“We get some great wins working as a team together but it’s not possible to win every issue and if you step outside the team, it’s even harder,” he said.

“We have crossbenchers in the Senate who can say whatever they want and be populist or whatever but they’re never in the room which makes the decisions.

“If you look at agriculture, the decisions to put accelerated tax depreciation measures in place for grain and hay storage, water and fencing – instant asset write-offs for equipment – all those things that are putting money in farmers’ pockets, you can never do that from the crossbenches.

“You can only do that from within the room and it’s a much bigger game than just playing one issue at a time.”

Mr Coulton said he was “very fond of George personally” but believed his decision to step down from the whip’s job was “appropriate”.

“I was whip for six years and the job of the whip is to give guidance to the members, to keep morale up, to work with members who may have personal issues and help those individuals when they’re in difficult situations, where they may have a conflict as to supporting legislation and how that may happen,” he said.

“I wasn’t the sort of whip who used a heavy hand – far from it – but the whip’s position is one where you lead by example, and George’s propensity to go his own way on different issues really doesn’t suit him to be in that position.

“I think he’s a very effective member and a fierce champion and he fights strongly and loves his electorate with all of his heart but that’s not what’s required to be the whip.”

Mr Coulton said during his six years as whip the only time he gave thought to breaking party discipline was on the Murray Darling Basin Plan during its early formation in about 2010, when former Independent rural MP Tony Windsor was pushing amendments.

“I gave it some thought but after working my way through the issue I worked out that what Tony was offering, really wasn’t the answer and so I didn’t go with it,” he said.

“On the issue of water I believed many of my farmers had been going through reforms for 25-years and they actually wanted to get to a point where they had some closure.

“They obviously wanted a better result at the time – but I wasn’t getting any message from my farmers that they wanted to go back to the beginning and start again.”

Mr Christensen said over the past week as he reached his decision to step down as whip, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce had been “incredibly supportive and said he would have supported whatever decision I made on the matter”.

“I thank him and the rest of the Nationals team for the great honour of serving as their Chief Whip over the last six months,” he said.

Senior Labor power-broker Anthony Albanese said the chaos that has infected the Coalition had now gone to the National Party with Mr Christenson replaced as the chief whip.