The Queensland Liberal National party politician George Christensen has been reported to police over a Facebook post showing the MP holding a handgun with the comment “Do you feel lucky, greenie punks?”

Ben Pennings, who is running for the lead position on the Queensland Greens Senate ticket, said he sent police the screenshot of Christensen’s post after receiving “numerous” death threats from central and north Queensland.

George Christensen’s original post on Saturday. Photograph: Facebook

Pennings is one of the lead campaigners against the Adani coalmine in Queensland, which is enthusiastically supported by Christensen, whose Dawson electorate, centred on Mackay in the north of the state, is one of the hardest hit by downturn in the resources sector.

“You see something like this and well, a big chunk of the people calling for my death have been coming from this region and it’s no wonder when you see what their local member is like,” Pennings said.

“As far as I am concerned, they should be pissed at George Christensen for their limited economic choices, or at Adani for making false promises. But instead they’re targeting peaceful protesters.”

On Sunday Queensland police said no offence had been committed.



Richard di Natale, leader of the Greens, said he had also reported Christensen to the Australian federal police. “It’s disgraceful, irresponsible, it’s shameful,” he told the ABC on Monday.

Christensen did not respond to requests for comment. But 20 hours after making the original comment on a post about a visit to a local shooting range, which appeared under his verified Facebook account name, he modified it.

Christensen’s edited post on Sunday. Photograph: Facebook

The original comment said: “You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?”, a take on the famous Dirty Harry movie franchise line, above a photo of Christensen aiming a handgun.

As anger erupted over the post, it was altered to: “You gotta ask yourself, do you have a sense of humour, greenie punks? Obviously not.”

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the post showed why Christensen was “unfit for public office” and had the wider effect of “demonising” shooters who were “Olympians, Commonwealth Games medallists, conservationists, farmers and many of them veterans”.

“Last week 17 people were shot dead at a US high school and this is how an Australian member of parliament responds?” she said.

“It’s beyond offensive – this idiot has shown, again, why he’s unfit for public office. The thing with men like Mr Christensen is they don’t think the rules of decency apply to them. Inciting violence is an offence under the law and it should also be a sackable offence for a parliamentarian.”

Sam Lee, the chair of Gun Control Australia, said Turnbull should demand Christensen’s resignation.

“This is a stupid and selfish and childish act in response to a national tragedy in the United States where 17 students were killed in yet another school shooting in that country,” Lee said.

“We should be supporting the US calls for better gun laws by referring to our own successful response after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. But instead, Mr Christensen makes threats to other politicians.

“This action brings into questions whether Mr Christensen is a fit and proper person to be a representative in our parliament, let alone be allowed to have access to a firearm.”

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, finished a press conference on Sunday without answering a question about Christensen’s post, but did comment on Australia’s gun laws in the wake of the Florida mass shooting.

“We don’t tell other countries how to manage their firearms policies, but obviously Australia’s is one of the strictest in the world,” he said.

“We have a great deal to thank John Howard and indeed Tim Fischer who supported him, as leader of the Nationals at the time, for taking up the leadership challenge after the shocking Port Arthur massacre and introducing our tough firearms laws, which as you know, dramatically restricted the range of firearms that are available.

“The United States has a very different culture in respect of guns, it is a very, very intense political debate there, but in terms of policy nothing speaks more eloquently than the leadership of John Howard and the effectiveness of the laws he put in place more than 20 years ago.”

It is not the first time Christensen’s social media has caused outcry. In 2015 he posted a cartoon that depicted the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, naked on a wrecking ball. He also defended that as “a joke”.