Clive Palmer faced a conundrum in Canberra on Thursday: whether to answer a question on China and Taiwan from one of the press gallery’s most esteemed journalists, or swallow the chunk of chocolate biscuit he’d just bitten into.
In the end, he did both, telling Andrew Probyn from Nine News that “once the American commitment goes, Taiwan wouldn’t be able to defend itself” through a mouthful of Tim Tam.
The mercurial mining magnate, the perennial political prospect, came to town to explain his new party, Trumpet of Patriots. A few hundred million dollars in advertising over the last few election campaigns has netted Palmer (and his now-deregistered plaything, the United Australia party) just the one lone Senate seat, so he might not trouble the scorers in the election to be held in April or May. But his massive advertising machine is already creaking into gear, smashing online feeds and newspaper front pages with his now-distinctive shade of canary yellow, with promises to spend more than $50m in this campaign.
People are going to hear Palmer and his claims, whether they like it or not – so it’s important to interrogate what he actually stands for and what he wants to achieve with his truckload of cash.
Even if, as he told the National Press Club, “this is my golf”.
“At 70, I could join many Australians and play lawn bowls, right? I find this more exciting, talking to you, than playing lawn bowls,” Palmer told journalists.
Palmer told the press club it was his 10th address to the venue. He also told the room of fans and journalists that he was 71, later clarifying that he was actually 70 but that his birthday was next week. While those in the crowd tucked into a catered lunch, Palmer chewed on a few Tim Tam biscuits as he answered journalists’ questions, likely a nod to his bizarre tweets in 2017, which focused largely on junk food.
Brandishing one chocolate biscuit in the air, he looked to his wife from the stage and said “you can’t stop me here” before taking another bite.
In a long speech, echoing the sentiment of his advertising, Palmer spoke about homelessness, housing, poverty, cost of living and economic growth. There was little mention of his long-running and colourful legal battles, or business troubles – he dismissed his courtroom challenges as “legal warfare” from critics. Asked about how his calls for the government to spend more money on cost-of-living relief squares with his bid to sue the Australian government in Singapore for more than $300bn under an obscure trade clause, Palmer said he would use the money to fund hospitals and food programs.
“A one-man government?” Palmer was asked. He replied: “No, a one-man charity.”
We’ll wait in hope to see if that promise comes true.
At the last election, the UAP ran huge newspaper ads promising Craig Kelly, the turncoat Liberal MP who jumped ship to Palmer, would be “our next prime minister”. Not only did the UAP fail to win government, they failed to win a single lower house seat, with only Victorian senator Ralph Babet scraping into the upper house. It wasn’t for lack of trying, with Palmer’s Mineralogy pumping about $100m into ads and support for the UAP campaign; including newspaper ads denounced as spreading “misleading” claims about the World Health Organization, online ads which raised the ire of the Therapeutic Goods Administration and Labor party, and spam texts to millions of Australians raising concerns about the Covid-19 vaccines.
Those texts in 2019 and 2022 annoyed and confused many.
“I understand and agree with you, that many people from the Guardian, readers, are not enjoying our ads at all,” Palmer told us, breaking into a grin when we asked about his marketing onslaught.
“Money is made to spend. It’s to buy subscriptions to the Guardian support, put ads in the Guardian, support journalists in this country. It’s to spend.”
after newsletter promotion
Palmer joined the press club stage a day after large newspaper ads claiming “there are only two genders” caused consternation among staff at the Nine newspapers. The Age ran a headline, calling out the “divisive ads”, right above the banner along the front page of their paper. Palmer stood by his claim on Thursday.
It was also a day after another wealthy political disruptor, Climate 200’s Simon Holmes à Court, spoke about the “teal” independent wave and the plans to continue growing a community movement. While Holmes à Court downplayed his financial contributions when compared to the major parties spending hundreds of millions per campaign, Palmer was quite open about why he was burning his money rather than – for instance – retiring on a tropical island with a swimming pool full of cash.
Asked about the UAP’s 2022 campaign, which focused largely on vaccines and Covid, Palmer bluntly said his strategy was to bring attention to his thoughts on the pandemic.
“We spent that money because we had two purposes. One, to elect people to parliament and secondly, to criticise the vaccine in this country,” he said.
“So on that side, we say that campaign was very, very successful. That doesn’t mean that you expect to win, and it does prove the point that money, per se, doesn’t win elections.”
Noting the recent major party stitch-up on electoral reform, which will put millions in public funding into the coffers of the Labor and Liberal parties, Palmer got philosophical about money in the way that only someone with large buckets of it can be.
“Why wouldn’t someone like me, who’s got excess money, cares about our country, want to put that money in to create a debate in the country about some of these issues? What’s wrong with that?” he asked.
“It’s my money. If I lose it, I lose it.”
And how much was he willing to lose? He said it would be more than $50m.
“As much as my wife will let me,” he said. “But I’ve had two Tim Tams today. So things are not looking good.”