Why Clive Palmer bets you can’t tell black from white. Or yellow from teal

Surely, Clive Palmer is trolling us. Surely.

Here we are, just a few months out from a federal election, and Palmer – in my view the graspingest of all our home-grown billionaires – has applied to the relevant authority, IP Australia, to trademark the word “teal”. Also, heaven help me, the phrase “The Clive and Pauline Party”, “Teals”, “The Teal Party” and “AusTeal”.

Illustration: Joe Benke.Credit:

Avoiding the sheer horror of a party co-chaired by Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, neither of whom has once contributed one iota of goodness to our nation, let me reassure you of this. Palmer is not colour-blind. He’s a stuntman. He knows the difference between the shrieking canary yellow of his multiple political campaigns and the bluey-green of the group of politicians known as community independents. He just thinks the rest of us don’t understand the difference between black and white.

But this move by Palmer is entirely on-brand. He’s lied about a lot in his life – about death taxes, about vaccines, in political ads, about resuscitating his nickel refinery. He’s threatened employees of his failed businesses. And let’s not forget his general enthusiasm for misinformation and disinformation. Remember when he told us there were many more deaths from COVID-19 vaccines than there were from COVID-19? I asked Andrew Hughes, an ANU expert in political marketing, what he thought was going on in Palmer’s head.

“The objective would be to damage the teals so they lose enough primary vote share that they can’t influence the outcome in marginals, but to also give Clive more influence in his dealings with the Coalition and maybe even Labor.”

And he points out that this election will be a horror show if we are looking for truth in advertising. Court action will not be nimble enough to slow down those looking to exploit loopholes in our election laws, “for selfish objectives which only ultimately hurt how voters perceive democracy and power in Australia”.

Clive Palmer: “The objective would be to damage the teals so they lose enough primary vote share.”Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A-grade trolling by Palmer. But it wouldn’t be the first time Clive Palmer has trolled Australia. Remember when he built an entire party, spent an absolute fortune? As an MP, he lasted precisely one term. Too wimpy to stand again. The vibe in Fairfax must have got to him. The fine folks of that Sunshine Coast-adjacent federal electorate, came, more or less, to their senses. Now, they’ve got the LNP’s Ted O’Brien, the shadow minister for nuclear power. Thank heavens, he’s just a shadow.

Sure, Palmer’s got a short attention span (exactly what we don’t want from our politicians). He’s tried to bring dinosaurs back from the dead (or at least animate them), the Titanic back from the dead, his political career back from the dead. He even tried to convince Australians hydroxychloroquine was truly the cure for COVID-19, and let’s not forget he challenged the West Australian government for closing borders during the pandemic, claiming those border closures were unconstitutional. Even Scott Morrison, who first came out all guns blazing to support Palmer, eventually came to his senses on that one.

I cannot think of a single thing Palmer has done to benefit the nation, although I can think of a few things which have done nothing but benefit him.

Does it matter? It’s not as if teal is much more than a colour first chosen by federal MP for Warringah Zali Steggall, then used by journalists as shorthand for centrist politicians who support action on climate change and benefit from the power of community organising.

I hope the Australian Electoral Commission intervenes and puts Palmer in the naughty corner for pretending to be someone he isn’t. I hope the entirety of Australian electorate never ever votes for Palmer again. Let’s face it, we can blame about 150,000-odd Victorians for wasting their Senate votes on the United Australia Party and the utterly meritless Ralph Babet. That’s about 4 per cent of valid Victorian voters who chose infamy and ingloriousness. These are the guys who tried to get the AEC to back them in a bid to count crosses as no votes in the failed Voice to parliament referendum.

But I am somewhat reassured by University of Melbourne law academic Ben Hopper, who tells me IP Australia is on the canny side when it comes to registering trademarks. He says it’s unlikely Palmer will succeed, improbable even; and Palmer is more likely to be trying it on for a stunt.

Hopper says the trademark examiner could well find that Palmer’s use of the “teal” trademarks would be contrary to the law because he’d be faking it (stay with Hopper and me here).

The word “teal” is in the Macquarie Dictionary as a noun (and corresponding adjective) meaning “an independent political candidate who holds generally ideologically moderate views, but who supports strong action in relation to the environment and climate change, and advocates the prioritising of integrity in politics”. It means something specific. It definitely does not mean Clive Palmer.

Here’s a bloke who wouldn’t accept climate science even if man-made climate change came and bit him on the bum. Hopper points to the law of passing off. He tells me Palmer’s use of the mark “teal” for the services claimed in his trademark applications may well cause confusion. The ordinary consumer may (mistakenly) think those services are being provided by teal independents when they are not.

Hopper describes this as passing off, the misrepresentation of who and what Palmer actually believes in – and how he goes about his business. Because here’s another thing teals do which Palmer disunited doesn’t. Teals, a word they don’t really even use themselves, spend a lot of time in their communities, holding endless meetings, having endless consultations, walking and talking, talking and walking. I don’t know where they get their patience.

When Palmer became the member of Fairfax, he barely visited, let alone walked the main streets of Maroochydore asking about the vibe.

Now, it will take some time for Palmer’s application to be dealt with by IP Australia. Meanwhile, we need to make sure we don’t step into a world where black means white, or where building bitterness and division is confused with building better communities.

Yellow will never be teal. Or orange or lilac or purple, or any of the many colours teals use to tell us who they really are.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist.

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