Scott Morrison must remove Coalition MP George Christensen as the chair of Parliament’s joint standing committee on trade and investment growth due to his record of incendiary and false comments about China.
 
At a time when calm and skilful diplomacy is needed to resolve our trade tensions with China, the Morrison Government is giving Mr Christensen free rein to spout deplorable comments and spread misinformation.
 
Mr Morrison has consistently failed to deliver leadership on the China relationship and has never admonished inflammatory behaviour by Mr Christensen or his other MPs.
 
This has made a bad situation worse.
 
On Facebook this week, Mr Christensen suggested he was opposed to any form of Chinese economic activity in Australia, in a post about the Government’s rejection of the sale of construction firm Probuild to a Chinese company.
 
He also provided a link to an article on the issue published by the Epoch Times, which is notorious for publishing right-wing misinformation.
 
Accompanying his irresponsible comments on China this week, Mr Christensen has been spreading the same lies and conspiracies spouted by the violent mob who participated in the insurrection in Washington DC.
 
Mr Christensen, who was appointed chair of the parliamentary committee in July last year, has ramped up his comments about China in recent months.
 
He has compared China to Nazi Germany, publishing his views on the right-wing social media site Parler, which was shut down last week after being used by Trump supporters to promote the deadly riots at the US Capitol.
 
He has also described COVID-19 as the “Wuhan flu”.
 
In December, Mr Christensen backed his Queensland LNP colleague Matt Canavan’s call for Australia to impose a levy on iron ore exports. 
 
Such a move would only worsen the trade tensions with China, damage our economy-saving iron ore industry and cost thousands of Australian jobs.
 
As well, Mr Christensen’s website features false and misleading statements about China.
 
The website claims “Communist China is Australia’s largest foreign investor”.  But according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, China is Australia’s ninth largest foreign investor, with only 2 per cent of the total.
 
Labor understands the relationship with China is increasingly complex.
 
It is a relationship that must be managed in the national interest and not for partisan political interests
 
China is not immune from criticism and we should call out any country that unreasonably blocks our exports.
 
But it has become increasingly clear that Mr Christensen is the wrong person to be heading a parliamentary committee charged with objectively examining our trade and investment relationships with other nations.
 
The chair of this committee must act in the national interest.
 
Scott Morrison should stop rewarding this unhinged behaviour
 
Mr Christensen should be removed and replaced with a more sensible and balanced MP who would work to improve Australia’s trading relationships, rather than make them worse.
 
Thousands of jobs depend on it.