What election night party venues tell us about the parties

Bill Shorten’s election night will move up-market. Picture: Sarah Matray

Overwhelming doesn’t begin to describe Clive Palmer’s billionaire political intervention this election.

Our 13th richest Australian — worth $4.51 billion, according to The Stensholt List — has spent more than $50 million on a saturation advertising campaign.

Palmer’s camp reckons the return will be three or four senators, including a red seat for the litigious Gold Coast-based businessman himself.

Sydney’s Sofitel Wentworth has become the Liberals’ home ground.

That would make Palmer a senate crossbench king again — at least until the other United Australia Party senators disunite and become independents, as Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus did last time this circus came to Canberra.

Margin Call hears Palmer, who squeezed in an end-of-campaign holiday in Fiji, will be back in Australia on Saturday night for an election party at his Coolum Resort on the Sunshine Coast.

While their campaign HQ has been in Brisbane, Scott Morrison’s Liberals are having their Saturday night gathering at Old Faithful, Sydney’s Sofitel Wentworth: the same Phillip Street venue they have used since John Howard won government in 1996.

Palmer United Party federal leader Clive Palmer will spend election night at his Palmer Coolum Resort, at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast.

If Morrison pulls off a surprise victory he’ll have enough authority in the party to have the next one at the Sharks Leagues, Cronulla RSL, Northies, or wherever he likes.

And as we revealed back in March, the Labor function will be at billionaire Lindsay Fox and fellow rich lister Max Beck’s Hyatt Place, the new airport hotel in Bill Shorten’s electorate of Maribyrnong.

Quite the upgrade from last election’s venue: Moonee Valley Racecourse.

After all the campaigning class war rhetoric, the former AWU leader is hoping to celebrate the fulfilment of his teenage dream to be Prime Minister at a joint owned one by of his core constituencies: Melbourne’s mega rich.