Clive Palmer looms as wrecker for LNP in state election

Clive Palmer’s record of policy fantasy underlines the fact he has nothing to offer Queenslanders. Picture: AAP

Annastacia Palaszczuk does not deserve such luck. As Queensland’s debt soars towards $100bn, with the effects of COVID-19 compounding Labor’s six years of public sector overspending, the state needs a serious economic debate in the lead-up to the October 31 election. For the first time voters will elect a government for four years, not three. At this stage the campaign is shaping as a dystopian nightmare for the Liberal National Party. Opposition MPs locked in behind leader Deb Frecklington on Monday. That was no surprise. Most voters know little about what she stands for but they would struggle to pick out the rest of her frontbench in a line-up. That includes the talented opposition tourism spokesman David Crisafulli, who wisely ruled out a challenge ahead of the poll despite being favoured by LNP headquarters.

The unanimous vote of confidence in Ms Frecklington solved one of her problems. But if she and her team are to be competitive against Labor after its two mediocre terms, the schizophrenia besetting the LNP’s administrative wing needs to be eliminated — now. Political parties’ machinations are matters best resolved internally. But LNP president David Hutchinson cannot continue to serve two masters — the party and Clive Palmer, who employs him as a consultant on the billionaire’s mothballed Coolum resort. Two members of the LNP state executive, Malcolm Cole and federal Nationals president Larry Anthony, also work for Mr Palmer through their communications and lobbying company, SAS Group, as Michael McKenna and Sarah Elks wrote on Tuesday. And LNP powerbroker and former president Bruce McIver, who has made it known he is dissatisfied with Ms Frecklington’s leadership, recently returned to be a director of one of Mr Palmer’s companies.

Mr Hutchinson’s irreconcilable conflict of interest is underlined by the fact Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party has called for nominations for candidates in the October poll. That could be problematic for Mr Hutchinson. In January, when McKenna broke the news that Mr Hutchinson was working for Mr Palmer, Ms Frecklington said the party president had advised “that if the Palmer United Party contest the Queensland state election he will resign from his employment”.

Mr Palmer’s record of policy fantasy underlines the fact he has nothing to offer Queenslanders, especially in the current straitened circumstances. Mr Palmer’s magic pudding policies have included cutting tax on second jobs by 50 per cent, abolishing fringe benefits tax, tax-deductible home loans, free university tuition, zonal taxation, $150-a-week pension rises, an $80bn splurge on national health spending and fast trains to service the nation’s major capital cities within an hour from centres 300km away. Such notions are nothing to do with the LNP. But Mr Palmer is determined to meddle. In a statement attacking Ms Frecklington on Monday he described himself as “a former LNP life member and National Party spokesman”.

Aside from his contradictory political involvements, Mr Palmer remains embroiled in litigation over his business interests. The Australian Securities & Investments Commission has charged Mr Palmer with breaches of the Corporations Act relating to his dealings with The President’s Club, which oversees the interests of villa owners, whose investments at his Coolum resort were affected by its “temporary closure” in 2015. A fortnight ago, liquidators of Queensland Nickel lost their bid to claw back more than $100m for creditors from Mr Palmer’s flagship company, Mineralogy.

Mr Palmer, who was notable for his absence from parliament during his inglorious term as a federal MP, would be an unwelcome distraction in the Queensland campaign. Policymaking and debate in the nation’s third-largest state economy must focus on creating the conditions to maximise investment and jobs, control government spending and examine options, including asset leases or sales, to pay down the burgeoning debt. Energy policy and water also will be key election issues. Mr Hutchinson and others are running the risk of making it easy for Ms Palaszczuk to convince voters the LNP is dysfunctional and not ready to govern. The notion that the state has no alternative but to limp along with Labor, deeper into the red, for another term, is dispiriting.