A favour not forgotten
ONE good deed two years ago has won the embattled LNP Member for Dawson George Christensen a vote from a grateful single dad in Bowen.
In 2017 when 30-year-old Bowen woman Courtney Clem was dying in a Brisbane Hospital, Mr Christensen along with the state Member for Burdekin Dale Last took on Queensland Health’s formidable bureaucracy in order to have her moved back to her home town.
It was where she wanted to die, but Queensland Health wanted to keep her in Brisbane. The joint effort from the two politicians ensured that she was moved back to Bowen where she died surrounded by her husband and her two boys.
Courtney’s husband Clint Clem is grateful for the work done by the politicians and now when May 18 rolls around he’ll be rewarding Mr Christensen by giving him his vote.
Mr Christensen, who has held 14,630 square kilometre Dawson since 2010, will need every vote he can get to keep his grip on the seat he holds by a slippery margin of 3.4 per cent.
His frequent visits to the Philippines to see his fiancee April Asuncion, coupled with more recent questions surrounding the legitimacy of a portion of his travel claims, have raised eyebrows. But Mr Christensen says “there is nothing to see here”.
This could well be the case, but worried voters could start looking at the wider line-up of candidates, which includes Labor’s Belinda Hassan, KAP’S Brendan Bunyon, One Nation’s Debra Lawson, Imogen Lindenberg from The Greens and Colin Thompson from United Australia Party.
Mr Clem was a bull catcher and contract musterer who travelled far and wide to pursue his line of work. Now he is a single dad raising his son Lane, 9, and stepson Mac, 12, on a Federal Government allowance of $1500 a fortnight.
“Everything changed when Courtney died. It all came to a stop. Now I’m raising the boys, trying to do the best for Courtney. Bless her soul, I miss her every day,” he said.
“You can’t explain how or why these things happen. She was just 30 years old and died from cervical cancer. We still do things on her birthday.”
Mr Clem said his wife was “stuck in the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital” and was desperate to come home.
“She was dying and she was stuck in Brisbane. George and Dale helped to get her moved to Bowen.” Even though she has died, Mr Clem feels as though Courtney is always watching him raise the two boys.
He worries about Lane and Mac’s future and whether Australia’s political leaders are doing enough to provide career pathways for young Australians.
He is angry about the degradation of the Murray-Darling and the amount of water being dragged from the river system by irrigators. He says the Government is allowing Australia to be sold to foreign interests and that Australians in the future will have little to call their own.
“There are too many people coming here from other countries taking jobs that should be going to Australians. I think the Government should be doing more to train young Australians for jobs. And there is too much money spent on foreign aid. This money could be used to develop Australia,” he said.
Mr Clem is in favour of the proposed Adani coal mine west of Bowen, so long as it provides jobs for locals.
Apart from his two boys and his late wife, Mr Clem has one other love in his life. It is his 1990 HZJ75 Landcruiser ute. Equipped with air bag suspension, winch, tool and water compartments and enough wattage to light up New York, it’s a weapon.