The Rotten Ritual of Parliament

Dear friend,

Let me lay it out plain for you. Parliament House in Canberra isn’t the engine room of our democracy. It’s a stage. A show. A carefully choreographed farce where the plot never changes, the actors never improvise, and the audience—you—are expected to sit quietly and pretend it’s all very serious and respectable. But it’s not. It’s theatre. And bad theatre at that.

The same is likely true of parliaments in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and also the Congress in the USA, albeit in Britain and America there seems to be a bit less choreography and a tad more independent thinking.

• Parliament House is nothing more than political theatre, complete with scripts, actors, and a bored audience.

• Question Time is a hollow ritual of pre-arranged questions and fake confrontation that insults public intelligence.

• Debates in Parliament are empty noise with no votes, no impact, and no space for real conviction.

• Party discipline crushes independent thinking and punishes dissent with threats, exclusion, or worse.

• The major parties are crumbling, and with them falls a decaying system begging to be rebuilt by free thinkers.

Let’s talk about Question Time. It’s become a circus of scripted suck-up questions and limp-wristed gotcha attempts that amount to absolutely nothing. You know what’s worse? Many of those softball questions from government backbenchers aren’t even written by them—they’re written by the very ministers they’re lobbing them to. It’s a pantomime where both sides are playing to a script written by the same system. The public hates it. And they should.

Then there’s the so-called “Matter of Public Importance” debate. Sounds serious, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s a glorified high school debating club, where the big egos on both sides puff their chests and toss insults across the chamber, cheered on by a gallery of backbench nobodies desperate to land a one-liner and climb the greasy political ladder. It’s a farce. No vote. No resolution. No consequence. Just noise.

And when it comes time to actually debate laws that affect your lives? Forget it. The government tells its side to talk it up, the opposition talks it down, and then everyone votes the way the party tells them to. It’s not debate—it’s a glorified echo chamber. There’s more free thinking in a cult than there is in an Australian party room.

Political party discipline in this country has become a bludgeon used to suppress independence and destroy dissent. Cross the floor? You get expelled if you’re Labor. Ostracised if you’re Coalition. And if you’re lucky, maybe just blackmailed.

Yes, blackmailed. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. One senior Liberal tried to pull that trick on me. It didn’t work—it backfired—but it proves how rotten the machine really is. When I was planning to cross the floor on the banks, I had ministers crawling around me like ants on sugar, pleading, panicking, bargaining. Not because they cared about the issue—but because I was about to mess with the show. That terrified them.

I remember standing there the first time I crossed the floor. Joe Hockey was shooting daggers at me. Bob Katter was sitting beside me, thinking I was being rude when I ignored him—until he looked at me and saw my teeth were literally chattering. Yeah, I was scared. But I still did it. Because someone had to.

It takes guts to think for yourself in that place. That alone tells you how broken it’s become.

What we have now is a tightly controlled duopoly—a two-party cartel—that punishes free thinkers, mocks independence, and labels dissent as “disunity.” The media backs it. The party machines enforce it. And the law is structured to keep the whole circus rolling. Why? Because the system is built to protect the status quo.

Not the people. Not the voters. The status bloody quo.

But the cracks are showing. The primary vote share of the major parties is dropping like a stone. Australians don’t vote for vision anymore—they vote against the alternative. That’s not democracy. That’s decay.

Change won’t come from within this broken system while the same old parties still hold the reins. But as their grip weakens—as it inevitably will—we’ll have the chance to build something better. A system where representation means something again. Where conscience matters. Where politicians are free to think, speak, and act—not just toe the party line.

Until then, with but a few notable exceptions, parliament will largely remain a sheltered workshop for people who can’t think for themselves.

It’s time to stop pretending it’s anything more than that. Share this. Speak up. Start the shift.

Until next time, God bless you, your family and nation.

Take care,

George Christensen

George Christensen is a former Australian politician, a Christian, freedom lover, conservative, blogger, podcaster, journalist and theologian. He has been feted by the Epoch Times as a “champion of human rights” and his writings have been praised by Infowars’ Alex Jones as “excellent and informative”.

George believes Nation First will be an essential part of the ongoing fight for freedom:

“The time is now for every proud patriot to step to the fore and fight for our freedom, sovereignty and way of life. Information is a key tool in any battle and the Nation First newsletter will be a valuable tool in the battle for the future of the West.”

— George Christensen.

Find more about George at his www.georgechristensen.com.au website.

Authorised by G. Christensen, River Street, Mackay