Clive Palmer’s $100m election spend is ‘only a couple of months work’ for the billionaire

Clie Palmer reveals he is targeting the Liberals and Labor with his huge advertising spend as part of a ‘nasty’ plan for the election.

Mining Billionaire Clive Palmer aboard his superyacht in Sydney Harbour on Sunday. He is in Sydney for his defamation court case against WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Jane Dempster

He targeted Bill Shorten in the last federal election, but this time there’s more than $100m worth of reasons why Clive Palmer might become Scott Morrison’s worst nightmare.

The Queensland billionaire’s advertising spending spree for his United Australia Party was considered to be one of the reasons for the former Labor leader’s loss in 2019.

Mr Palmer has said he will top that mere $88m outlay three years ago with an even bigger campaign that he promises will target the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese and even the Greens.

“I get up at 2am … and spent my first hour thinking about all the nasty things I can do to the Liberal Party or the Labor Party,” Mr Palmer told The Australian aboard his superyacht in Sydney Harbour on Sunday afternoon.

“Then from 3 to 4am I actually do it, writing the ads and other things.

“I’ve got no confidence in Scott Morrison or Albo, or [Josh] Frydenberg or that other guy, what’s his name, [opposition Treasury spokesman] Jim Chalmers,”

Mr Palmer said he had just signed a $27m cheque for television ads alone to run through to the election on networks Seven and Nine.

While the $100m advertising spend is substantial, the billionaire played down the size of the sum, given he is now getting more than $600m annually in mining royalties from Chinese giant Citic.

“It’s only a couple of months’ work for me,” Mr Palmer deadpanned.

The 67-year-old billionaire is in Sydney for his defamation case against West Australian Premier Mark McGowan that begins in the Federal Court on Monday, and he hasn’t arrived quietly.

His $100m boat Australia – sailing under a Bermuda flag ­because it cannot be registered ­locally with that name – is moored next to the swanky Park Hyatt at The Rocks where passers-by snapped selfies of the billionaire and his boat as restaurant diners looked on.

Mr Palmer has argued that Mr McGowan damaged his reputation in 2020 comments that included labelling the billionaire an “enemy” of the state, and appears to relish judge Michael Lee forcing the WA Premier to travel east – which means 14 days’ quarantine when he returns to Perth after ­appearing last next week.

“They only want me for an afternoon. We will certainly want Mr McGowan in the box for longer than that,” he said.

More widely, Mr Palmer claimed his political ambitions gave him something to do and would help his country out.

“When you get to 67, your options are limited, right? You can play croquet, you can go and do bowls. You can hop on a bus and go and look at flowers.

“Or you can be engaged in politics at a national level like this.

“But if you’re in a privileged or elevated position, through life or money, and you can see what’s happening to the country, you’ve got a duty and responsibility to let people know what’s going to happen.”

When asked how he felt about his preferences potentially ­delivering the Opposition Leader to The Lodge, Mr Palmer would say only that the UAP would not place the Liberal Party, Labor or Greens within its top six preferences in the ­Senate.

In the House of Representatives, those three parties would be listed last – although Mr Palmer said “We haven’t decided in which order”.

As to why he wasn’t vaccinated against Covid-19, Mr Palmer said he had “exercised my freedom of choice.

“I’ve been informed consent, and I’ve decided I won’t be vaccinated. And that’s what I’ve done.”

Yet Mr Palmer might be staying on his superyacht because of his vaccination status, given that he could be refused entry to ­accommodation, even if he claimed that “it’s cheaper on here than a hotel anyway”.

Originally published as Clive Palmer’s $100m election spend is ‘only a couple of months work’ for the billionaire