Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has gone to police over an obscene death threat she claims was inspired by Nationals MP George Christensen.

Senator Hanson-Young lodged a complaint with the Australian Federal Police about the message she says she received on Sunday night, involving a firearm and vile name-calling from a “supporter” of the Queensland politician.

The subject line read “Bullets” with the sender expressing a hope “that George has one left in the chamber” with which he should shoot her.

“It was a threat towards me. It was a pretty sexist one and a threat to shoot me,” Senator Hanson-Young told ABC television on Monday.

She accused Mr Christensen of giving licence to people to behave in a violent way towards others who hold different views, after he used Facebook on Saturday to share a photo of himself pointing a gun alongside the comment: “You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?”

Mr Christensen later amended his post to read: “You gotta ask yourself, do you have a sense of humour, greenie punks? Obviously not.” He then deleted it altogether.

“George Christensen is the thug here. And he should take responsibility for the actions that he has given licence to,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

George Christensen’s Facebook post.

On Monday, Mr Christensen refused to apologise. He said he only deleted the post because he was asked to by acting Nationals leader Nigel Scullion.

“I’m not going to be moralised at by these extreme Greens for a joke that I put up on social media,” he said.

“The flippant comment I made online was a quote from [the movie] Dirty Harry, who was a police officer speaking to people who are conducting illegal activity such as the Greens are.”

Mr Turnbull described the post as “very inappropriate”.

“I think we agree on that and he’s taken it down,” he told 3AW radio.

“It was clearly inappropriate. I will let the police complete their evaluation.”

Federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale and an environmental activist have both referred Mr Christensen’s post to federal police.

Labor called on Mr Christensen to apologise.

–with AAP and ABC