Clive Palmer’s campaign ads, with promises impossible to fufill, should be banned

Voters are being duped by United Australia Party ads, with Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly making home loan promises they can’t possibly deliver on.

Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly are trying to con Australian voters with ‘lunatic stuff’ presented as serious policy says Steve Price. Picture: Brad Fleet

On Queensland’s Sunshine Coast at Coolum Beach there are three golf courses — Mount Coolum, Peregian and the Palmer Coolum Resort Golf course.

The first two are rated online as 4.4 and 4.0 out of five in golf course reviews. The Palmer course – owned by billionaire Clive Palmer and named after him – rates a 2.9.

Like the mining magnate himself, his golf course is eccentric and a little worse for wear. Playing there a few years back with strident Palmer critic Hedley Thomas from the Australian newspaper we couldn’t resist a couple of selfies alongside Clive’s dinosaurs.

We had to be discreet – a word not associated with Palmer himself – because Hedley wasn’t winning any friends in the Palmer camp by holding the billionaire to account.

Putting money into Clive’s pocket via green fees wasn’t something any of our foursome really wanted to do.

Just why there were dinosaurs on a golf course we never really worked out, just like the rusting vintage exotic vehicles dotted around the place.

Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly address the crowd at the United Australia Party's national launch at the Palmer Coolum Resort. Picture: Brad Fleet

Back then and until very recently, Palmer was in a lengthy dispute with a group of golf course villa owners who were angry at how the place had been run down.

The dispute even led to the owners having their water and power turned off in a bid to smoke them out and potentially sell their villas to Palmer.

At one point the course itself was in the top 30 publicly accessible courses in Australia – 22 years ago it ranked 27th and now, according to its own website, it’s slipped to 71st on the list.

Its real ranking — on the most respected list, the Gold Digest top 100 courses in Australia — puts it at 97th; quite a slide.

Not that Clive Palmer himself would care about any of the rankings or bleating about his golf course’s demise. The billionaire is too busy trying to buy himself a Senate spot at the May 21 federal election.

According to ad agency tracking, he spent $3.5m in little more than two weeks in April alone. Estimates put the spend on TV, radio and newspapers at $31m since last August.

At the last election in 2019, running his heavily criticised death taxes campaign against federal Labor — many say it cost Bill Shorten the election — Australian Electoral Commission records show he splashed $80m and didn’t win a single seat.

There should, however, be no sympathy for Palmer’s waste of his own money. He can afford it, after all.

What shouldn’t be tolerated, however, and what needs urgent political attention, is what is said in these yellow-themed political rants.

Australia urgently needs a “truth in political advertising” law at federal government level. Voters are being conned by slogans, half truths and downright misinformation.

In one full page newspaper ad over the Easter long weekend, Craig Kelly — now the leader of Palmer’s United Australia Party — claims a rise in mortgage rates to four per cent, from its current average variable rate of 3.32 per cent, would see 60 per centof Australians default on their mortgages.

If home loan rates go to six per cent or more, Kelly claims in black, white and yellow in this ad, 80 per cent of Australians will lose their homes.

Not could, or might, but will.

Billionaire Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party is making all sorts of impossible promises. Picture: Nigel Hallett

In a bid for votes, Kelly, using Palmer’s ad money, then makes the impossiblepromise to set by law a maximum home loan rate of three per cent for five years.

Ignoring that the independent Reserve Bank sets the cash rate, currently at historic lows of 0.1 per cent, the shareholder-owned banks then compete with each other to set competitive mortgage rates. And if there’s no margin, they won’t lend. At all.

Kelly then says he and Clive will tip all this on its head and prevent foreign buyers from flooding our real estate market.

Seriously, how is this lunatic stuff allowed to be presented as serious policy?

Palmer loves to use trigger words such as “freedom” on his billboards, trying dishonestly to tie federal Liberal and Labor parties to vaccine mandates and Covid lockdowns.

That’s more spin and garbage — both the mandates on various workforces and lockdowns were enforced by state governments and had nothing to do with Canberra.

But if you are Clive or Craig Kelly, who cares? Just say whatever you like. There is nothing preventing them splashing their mining money around because there are no laws around political advertising.

Compare the Palmer free-for-all ads with the regulations tied to ads for wrinkle cream products, hair loss or erectile dysfunction.

In a Palmer world, we would all be convinced one little pill would take years off our appearance, restore a full head of hair and pump up our sex life.

It wouldn’t be true and couldn’t happen but unlike Clive and his political ads, in the real world you need to prove what you’re selling will really work.

DISLIKES

• Increasing number of parking spaces being taken over by EV charging points that are always empty

• Like everyone else, nonsense 50 metre penalties for arm waving

• Being charged $22 for six hot cross buns and $32 for two schooners of beer

• Rapid Antigen Test kits all coming from China and paying $65 for a pack of five

LIKES

• Close contact Covid laws with seven-day isolation being dumped in Vic and NSW

• Anzac Day Monday with no crowd or participation limits

• Queen Elizabeth back on her feet to celebrate her 96th birthday

• Canberra’s biggest music festival dumps pill testing after being unable to get insurance

Australia Today with Steve Price can be heard live from 7am weekdays via the LiSTNR app.