Will the UAP run a candidate in Gladstone?

Mining magnate come politician Clive Palmer announced UAP will contest QLD election.

Clive Palmer has announced the United Australia Party will have candidates in the Queensland State Election on October 31, but will they nominate to run in Gladstone? Picture by Richard Gosling.

MINING magnate come politician, Clive Palmer, has announced his United Australia Party will have candidates in the October 31 state election, but the party’s fate in Gladstone remains unknown.

Mr Palmer came into the political spotlight in April 2013 when he launched the Palmer United Party and went on to win the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax, in the September 2013 Federal Election.

The party’s candidate, if nominated, will take on incumbent Labor member Glenn Butcher, LNP candidate Ron Harding and One Nation’s Kevin Jorgensen.

“Queensland needs a new economic deal,” Mr Palmer said when announcing the news on Friday.

“We need to make sure the state can get out of the swamp it finds itself in.

“We think our party has a lot to contribute to the economic debate.”

In the 2019 federal election, the UAP failed to win a seat.

Since then, Mr Palmer said his party had been doing its own polling, and he would not be running for a Queensland state seat.

“Our polling has suggested that neither party can win in their own right,” he said.

“We will be endorsing about 40 candidates in the coming weeks, and I will not be running – I’m too old for politics.”

There are 93 seats in Queensland state parliament.

From 1973 to 1975, Mr Palmer studied law, politics and journalism at the University of Queensland, failing to finish his degree.

In the 1980s he worked as a real estate agent on the Gold Coast, plus he completed a diploma of law through the Queensland bar board

With mining interests including the Townsville based Mineralogy, which was founded in 1985, Waratah Coal and Queensland Nickel, four golf courses including Port Douglas, Coolum, and two at Robina, the Australian Financial Review estimated his wealth at $4.09 billion in 2019.

In May 2017, Mr Palmer deregistered the Palmer United Party, then in 2018, the United Australia Party was born.

Mr Palmer said the party was fully focused on the coming Queensland election as well as the Victorian election due in November.

He said support for the Palmer United Party in Queensland since the September 2013 federal election had continued to grow.

“The Palmer United Party was a resounding success in Queensland at the federal poll just eight weeks after it was registered by the Australian Electoral Commission,” Mr Palmer said.

“I won the seat of Fairfax from the Liberals while Glenn Lazarus was elected to the Senate.

“Since the federal election, we have received massive interest from a wide range of worthy people who want to be Palmer United Party candidates at the Queensland election and we will field a very strong team.”

The Palmer United Party is already represented in the Queensland parliament through state leader Alex Douglas and deputy Carl Judge.

The Observer contacted the United Australia Party for comment.