Clive Palmer breaks silence on $55m election spend, calls out ‘sore losers’

Clive Palmer’s rambling appearance on breakfast TV before the election was dismissed as nonsense, but he got one thing spot on.

Clive Palmer got a lot wrong during a bizarre and often rambling appearance on Nine’s Today show ahead of the election.

He ranted about his ambitions to win not a handful of seats but enough to form Government.

“We intend to win,” he shouted at host Deborah Knight.

It was never going to happen, of course, but the United Australia Party leader’s boast fell embarrassingly short of the mark — he spent $55 million dollars on political advertising and came away with a total of zero seats.

But there was one thing he got right.

“Bill Shorten’s stuck his head in the sand. He knows the real figures,” Mr Palmer said, referring to polls that overwhelmingly and consistently favoured Labor.

“He’s got Labor party polls. Don’t believe what you believe in Newspoll. Where’s the undecided in Newspoll — 28 per cent of Australians not even considered.”

“My wealth is four thousand million dollars, do you think I give a stuff about what you personally think?” @CliveFPalmer to @Deborah_Knight. #9Today pic.twitter.com/JsAvt1eRLU

— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) April 28, 2019

Newspoll results put Labor ahead of the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis for 43 consecutive months.

It was enough to make Sportsbet pay out early on a Labor win, but it turned out to be irrelevant when the Coalition stormed home to form a majority Government.

“We know what the real figures are,” Mr Palmer said.

Three days after a disastrous result for his party, Mr Palmer is “elated”. He says he has no regrets about spending $55 million in advertising and not winning a single seat.

He’s just happy “shifty” Bill Shorten didn’t win.

Speaking with ABC Radio in Brisbane last night, Mr Palmer said he did what he did because he thought a Labor government “would be a disaster for Australia”.

“We decided to polarise the electorate and put what advertising we had left that hadn’t been used into explaining to Australian people what Shorten’s economic plans were for the country and how they needed to be worried about them,” he said.

A billboard of United Australia Party leader Clive Palmer in Melbourne. Picture: William West/AFP

“I’m very, very elated that we’ve got a strong government in Australia.

“We’ve saved the country from shifty (Bill Shorten).”

Former federal Labor treasurer Wayne Swan said Mr Palmer’s spending helped the Coalition “steal an election”, but Mr Palmer called that suggestion a “load of rubbish” and Mr Swan a “sore loser”.

United Australia Party billboards were erected across the country. They were coupled with full page ads in newspapers and television commercials for Palmer’s party — one that promised to “make Australia great”.

But the former mining magnate garnered just 3.4 per cent of the national vote and did not win a single seat.

Mr Palmer says his spending wasn’t wasted, as votes flowed through to the Coalition under a preferencing arrangement that helped Scott Morrison secure a majority government.

Swedish furniture giant Ikea took a cheeky stab at Mr Palmer’s spending during the election with a billboard advertising a $28 swivel chair.

“Geez Clive … $60 million and not a single seat? Should’ve come to Ikea,” it reads.

Ha pic.twitter.com/np3T5Nx4JB

— Andrew Greene (@AndrewBGreene) May 21, 2019