George Christensen in his parents' backyard near Mackay. Credit:Andrew Meares "Do people think Western civilisation will just keep going?" he asks. "All civilisations come to an end at some point. There is going to be a reckoning." There's a sense of alarm in his voice, but excitement, too. What a thrill to watch the world burn and see what emerges from the ashes. Heightening the mood is the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in the following week's US presidential election, an outcome that Christensen predicts will send "cataclysmic waves across the world". Unlike the majority of polls and the pundits, he says: "I think he's going to win." Days before the election, Christensen issued a plea on Facebook for Americans to "do the rest of the free world a favour" and vote for Trump. "If Trump is elected President of the USA, everything changes. And it's probably time things changed." Breaking with political orthodoxy is nothing new for Christensen. The Liberal National Party MP has called for the burqa to be banned in public, the death penalty to be reintroduced for terrorists who kill Australian citizens and for ice traffickers to be caned. During the federal election in July, he boasted that not one of the 12,000 refugees to be brought to Australia from Syria would make his electorate home. When a car was driven into a Sydney police station earlier this year, Christensen jumped on Facebook to predict "some idiot is going to inanely say this has nothing to do with Islam". (Christensen later backtracked on the comments when police said the man had no known terror links.)

George Christensen at a chicken shop in his Queensland electorate. Credit:Andrew Meares In an extraordinary speech to Parliament in November, Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent accused Christensen of peddling the politics of "fear and division" and "cuddling up to Hansonite rhetoric". Christensen hit back, calling him a "politically correct hand-wringer", part of the "elitist set here in Canberra". Later that month he joined calls by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for the 457 skilled visa program to be curtailed, saying there wasn't enough work in Dawson, earning him a terse text message from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. "He said, 'It looks like you're on Bill's side.' I said, 'It's not about being on anyone's side, they're my views.' George Christensen – during his bull-dyke years. Photographed for Good Weekend magazine. Credit:Andrew Meares "I won't lie," Christensen says as a semi-trailer rattles past us. "There have been some dark days where I have thought, 'Am I in the right political party?'"

Question time in the House of Representatives in October, and the prime minister has the call. "Let George speak, let George speak!" Labor MPs yell as Malcolm Turnbull walks to the dispatch box. "He's a born-again Christensen," hollers the Member for Perth, Labor's Tim Hammond, as Turnbull answers a question on renewable energy. George Christensen in a sugar cane field near Mackay, Queensland. Credit:Andrew Meares Where are the balls in politics? Where have they gone? When Christensen gets up, cries of "prime minister" ring through the chamber. He's become the embodiment of the concessions Turnbull has had to make to win and hold on to power. "Name me another backbencher who has had so many wins," Andrew Bolt, the country's most influential conservative commentator, tells Good Weekend. It started in February when Christensen led the charge against the Safe Schools anti-bullying program, which he compared to "paedophile grooming". The government announced a review before making major changes to the program. Then came the July election result: 76 seats for the Coalition in the House of Representatives, the minimum for majority government. It turbocharged the influence of any government backbencher prepared to hold their own side hostage.

Since then Christensen has threatened to cross the floor if the government pushed ahead with a $500,000 lifetime cap on non-concessional superannuation contributions; the government ditched it. He vowed to quit the Liberal National Party if the government kept its so-called backpacker tax; the government slashed it. And he has put Turnbull on notice not to allow a free vote on same-sex marriage, a move he says fundamentally breaches the Coalition agreement. He thinks it was a mistake for the Liberal Party to remove Tony Abbott (he didn't get a vote as a member of the Nationals party room) but has been pleased by Turnbull's willingness to respond to the demands of conservatives. "Everyone knew Tony was from the right of the party so he had to pander to the left. Malcolm is from the 'little-l liberal' side of the party so he has to give a bit to the right." But Christensen's hardball tactics have annoyed colleagues who think he has put his interests above the government's. "I told him, 'This does your credibility no good,' " says federal Queensland Coalition MP Warren Entsch. "You don't have to be a bloody lapdog but you need to be measured ... Far better to have a conversation than sit on the sidelines throwing crap and making threats you are highly unlikely to ever act on." Says NSW Nationals MP Michael McCormack: "You can't be out there on every issue threatening to blow the government up. That's not the way to get things done in politics." Someone who won't criticise him is Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce. "I crossed the floor 28 times," Joyce says of his days as a maverick senator. "I'm not going to be a hypocrite." After the election, Joyce appointed Christensen to the prestigious position of National Party Chief Whip, giving him responsibility for corralling votes and acting as a link between the leader and the backbench. "George has great potential, so I gave him increased responsibilities," says Joyce. "There's no reason at all he couldn't be a cabinet minister. Now that's not imminent. But does he have the ability to run a department? Yes. He knows what he believes in. He's very well read, very intelligent. The biggest mistake you can make with George is to think he's a fool cause he ain't." Andrew Bolt agrees: "At first, going by the media coverage, I thought he was a bit of a wild boy not to be taken too seriously. Then I interviewed him and decided he was very shrewd. He had thought things through, he was considered, he put his case without ranting. I don't see him as the bumper-sticker extremist people make him out to be."

As the night darkens we continue down the highway in Christensen's car, which doubles as mode of transport and mobile billboard. The Ford SUV is covered with decals of his name, a jolly cartoon of him in a suit and his slogan "Standing up for the North". Our conversation is peppered with the sound of Christensen, who is battling bronchitis, wheezing and coughing. Like Bolt, I'm surprised how mild-mannered he is for someone so outspoken; even when challenged about his views, he never raises his voice. "Have you heard of the acronym MGTOW?" Christensen asks. I search my brain. Not a clue. "It stands for: Men Going Their Own Way." Described by youth website VICE as a form of "ideological celibacy" in which men take their opposition to feminism so far they swear off sex, Christensen says it's a "crazy" subculture. But a revealing one, too. "There is something permeating our culture right now that has led to a loss of identity for men in particular," says Christensen, 38, who has had several long term girlfriends but never married. "For centuries we have known, because of biological reasons, what our place in the world was. Men were the hunters, women the gatherers. Men were the protectors, women the nurturers."

Then, in Christensen's telling, women streamed into the workforce, divorce became common and male dominated manufacturing jobs moved offshore. He pulls over at a dimly lit rest stop, grabs his iPhone and finds a YouTube clip of film-maker Michael Moore explaining Trump's appeal to the white working poor. Christensen roars with approval as Moore details Trump's face-to-face threat to Ford executives that he would slap a 35 per cent tariff on the company if they dared shut down its manufacturing plant in Detroit and moved production to Mexico. "Can you imagine if Tony Abbott had lined Ford and Holden up and said that! Where are the balls in politics? Where have they gone?" While Christensen has a strong libertarian streak ("One of my bugbears is when a mother has a kid die from pool death or some tragic circumstance and starts off on a crusade to have more regulations put on"), he wants to see a new wave of economic protectionism, including the return of tariffs and industry subsidies. Christensen argues that the rapid pace of economic and cultural change is leading voters to seek radical alternative policies such as those espoused by Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson and the "Brexiters". "I don't know if I'd be sitting here talking to you if I had a One Nation candidate running in my seat, I really don't," he says. Before the election, Christensen was told during a phone call with Pauline Hanson that she wouldn't run a candidate in Dawson, despite One Nation being assured of a strong result there. Christensen himself voted for One Nation at the 1998 Queensland election at a time of disillusionment with the National Party. "Why would I run someone against you?" Christensen remembers Hanson telling him. "You're saying all the things I say."

The day after Donald Trump's victory, I visit Christensen in his Parliament House office. A copy of Trump's policy manifesto, Time to Get Tough, sits on his desk beside a mini Doctor Who TARDIS and set of rosary beads. On the bookshelf are awards from lobby group Dads4Kids ("For sacrificial ser for the men, fathers and families of Australia") and the Australian Christian Values Institute ("For his public stand for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ"). The books on display (biographies of US conservative icons Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater) and his bookmarked websites (right-wing American sites Breitbart News and Zero Hedge) reflect his long fascination with US politics. While elated by Trump's victory, he fears the major parties here are in denial about the relevance of the result to Australia. "This is not about Donald Trump," he says. "The driving force behind this was nationalism and conservative populism – people who aren't into free-market ideology." Go outside the big cities here, he says, and you'll find similar angst about immigration, free trade and political correctness – the fear you'll be labelled a racist if you dare criticise Islam or Aboriginal welfare. He hopes it doesn't take an "election rout" for the Coalition to work that out. "If we don't get aboard the freight train, it will run us over." "OH YEAH, George," says John, a silver-haired taxi driver, when I tell him I'm in Mackay to write a piece on his local MP. "He's out there for local jobs, for local industry. Everyone knows him. You see him down at karaoke in shorts and thongs, you see his mum at bingo. He's from a working–class family – none of this silver spoon, like Malcolm Turnbull. Everything in his life he's had to fight for." Christensen's father, Ian, lost a leg to cancer at 19. Ian, a supporter of the ultra-conservative former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was a taxi driver and famous local drag racer. Christensen's mother, Margaret, suffered cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Both have been disability support pensioners and live just outside of Mackay. "We didn't have a lot of money growing up," says Christensen's younger sister, Kathleen Agnew. Christensen remembers going to his local public school without any shoes on his feet. Sundays were spent at church with his grandmother. Cousin Sarah O'Brien says: "George had to take on a lot of responsibility at a young age. My aunt had epileptic fits quite a lot and it was him who would make sure she was safe and in a recovery position until they subsided." She remembers George as a "lovely boy, a very sensitive kid". Sister Kathleen describes him as "quiet, always reading or watching Doctor Who". Lacking the money to study law at university in Brisbane, Christensen took out a bank loan to study journalism at Central Queensland University in Rockhampton. He was the first in his family to gain a tertiary education.

"I really came into my own," he says of his university days. "There was drinking, partying, girls. By the end I stopped going to tutorials." After graduating, he decided to become a Catholic priest – an idea he'd long considered – and attended a seminary in Melbourne. He was set to join the priesthood until his father "pointedly objected" to it. "All hell broke loose, basically. I was given an ultimatum: you can go, but don't ever come back." Almost 20 years later he still doesn't know why. "I have some thoughts," he says, his voice trailing off. "To this day I still wonder if it was the right decision. It's something I haven't ruled out." He later became disillusioned with the Catholic Church because of the sexual abuse scandals and what he perceived as a drift away from core dogmas. "You don't hear about the Catholic teaching on abortion from the pulpit ever. You might hear about Aboriginal land rights." In 2014 he converted to the Antiochian Orthodox Church. "That probably says something about me. A priest explained to me that orthodoxy does not change. What was believed at the beginning is believed now and what is believed now was believed at the beginning. Orthodoxy is not there to be changed; it's there to change. To change people and to change the world. Anyone who wants to come into the Orthodox Church and reform it won't be taken seriously." That same year he had an icon of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus tattooed onto his arm at Mad Monk Tattoo, a parlour a few blocks away from his electorate office. Warren Entsch, the moderate federal LNP MP for the northern Queensland seat of Leichhardt who has championed same-sex marriage, says Christensen's religiosity is "an asset for him but also an Achilles' heel … I have no issue with him being influenced by his religious beliefs and expressing them, but it can create an imbalance. His first role is not to carry a spear for his religion." After editing local newspapers and working as a press secretary for former federal Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly, Christensen was elected to Mackay City Council in 2004. It was around this time he was almost kicked out of the Queensland National Party. Christensen says he was in trouble for using a leaked copy of the Nationals membership list during his council campaign. Barnaby Joyce recalls: "The theme was, 'This guy is too far to the right and is going to be hard to manage, so let's quit our losses now.' I stood up for him strongly. I said he's authentic." He adds with a laugh: "To be considered too far to the right in the National Party is quite an achievement."

To understand Christensen, Joyce says you have to understand North Queensland. "It is its own state, almost its own country. It's full of people who have strong political views," he says, pointing to Entsch, rural federal independent MP Bob Katter and Gladstone's Fred Paterson, who in the 1940s became the only Communist Party member ever to be elected to an Australian parliament. "When you see George in that light, he's not as remarkable as he'd seem in Paddington in Sydney." As well as his home town of Mackay, Christensen's electorate includes Bowen (home of the Big Mango), the Burdekin Shire (the "sugar capital of Australia") and the southern suburbs of Townsville. It's a place of melon growers, cattle farmers, mining services workers and tourism operators – and it's a socially conservative place. An ABC Vote Compass survey this year ranked Dawson the 13th most right-leaning of Australia's 150 electorates. The rise and fall of the mining boom has left locals acutely aware of how quickly jobs can vanish. Dawson saw the biggest jump in unemployment between the last two elections of any electorate in Queensland. It also has one of the highest obesity rates in the country. Christensen – who weighed 75 kilograms when he left school but has been more than 100 kilograms for almost 20 years – says: "Everyone has their crutch. Mine is that when I get stressed I eat the wrong thing." His weight has made him an easy target for ridicule, but also more relatable to constituents. "He's not part of the Canberra elite – just look at the guy," says Airlie Beach restaurant owner Kevin Collins. After winning the seat from Labor in 2010, Christensen used his first speech to Parliament to call for the abolition of income tax and a royal commission into climate science. In 2014 he told a libertarian think tank that he was not a climatologist but that, as a Star Trek fan, "I know good science-fiction when I see it." "And that is what I have seen in the climate-change debate – a lot of fiction dressed up as science." His electorate covers some of the most visited parts of the Great Barrier Reef and local scientists have tried to convince him that man-made global warming is real and will have catastrophic consequences for the reef. To no avail. "I just don't believe it," he says. Former parliamentary colleague Ewen Jones says: "George arrives at his position on a subject slowly, with research and history as his guide … But he can selectively research. When he gets there, it is just about impossible to get him to change his mind."

I see this when I accompany Christensen to a support centre in Mackay for young and disabled jobseekers. The visit is sparked by his controversial call for dole payments to be cut off after six months, a proposal some staff believe will only entrench unemployment. "I hope this gives George the opportunity to think things through at a deeper level," says Ideal Placements operations manager Rhiannon Minniecon. But if she thinks he'll be shocked by what he hears, she is wrong. Christensen has no struggle relating to the job seekers he meets; many of their stories are familiar to him. "I mix up my letters, too," he tells a young woman with dyslexia. "My brother was in jail," he tells a young man looking for work after a stint in prison. (Christensen's younger brother was jailed in 2014 after chasing the lover of his former partner down the street with a knife.) "Go down to Torrisi's Garage and tell them George sent you," he advises a young man interested in cars. For three hours he listens, sympathises, offers ad. But he doesn't change his mind. Not even close. "They're not the mainstream unemployed," he says later. Sarah O'Brien, whose politics lean left, says she has struggled to understand how her cousin's sensitive nature coexists with his hardline politics. In the battle between ideology and empathy, she thinks ideology often wins out. "I cringe at a lot of his policies," she says. "Cutting off welfare would affect people in his own family, but he sees it as part of a bigger picture. I think he compartmentalises things in his mind. I guess we all do in some way." For our final meeting in Mackay, we drive down Mango Avenue, a shady tunnel-like street lined with 80-year-old mango trees, and pull up at the historic Eimeo Pacific Hotel. Christensen orders a chai latte before sitting at a table with sweeping views of the Whitsunday Coast, a single boat puttering across the water. I'm thinking about our car ride a few nights earlier when he said he wonders if he's in the right party. Has he really considered leaving? Yes, he says, during the weeks following the July federal election. The Coalition's low-energy election campaign, the focus on innovation, the tax hike on tobacco and Turnbull's "ill-advised Ramadan dinner with crazy imams" all left him in despair. So he joined a push by Queensland Liberal National MPs to form a breakaway party room. Had they pulled it off, it would have further destabilised Turnbull and busted the cosy Coalition power-sharing deal. But after a few days of intense manoeuvring, the LNP hierarchy killed it off. "There was also an element of bruised ego," he admits. "Some people said I was going to get a ministry – and went as far as to say the portfolio I would get – but it never eventuated. I was misled." Loading