Very hard to find good omens for the Libs

Clive Palmer in the House of Representatives in 2016. Picture: Kym Smith

While I am no fan of Clive Palmer, he is going to provide us with a window into our psyche. As he appears to be delivering on his threat to send each and every one of us stark, staring crazy by his $50 million advertising spend in this election, it remains to be seen whether you can simply purchase a seat in our parliament.

While I hope north Queenslanders remember the devastating blow he foisted upon them, he now splashes his cash everywhere in the north to entice people into forgetting his dreadful record. Now he has found another ex-State of Origin forward to carry his banner.

Maybe this bloke has been living under a rock and is completely unaware that Palmer has a problem keeping his political creations as mates for longer than it takes them to realise just what kind of bloke he is.

Despite some of his early protestations, you can bet his “how to vote” card will have the Coalition before Labor. His ads are utterly negative apart from throwing in a few uncosted promises to sweeten the bitter pill that Palmer really is.

Maybe there are wide-eyed, innocent, gullible new voters who are unaware of his past. Maybe there are those who will be forever grateful for his donation to their local footy or netball club and vote for him despite being aware of how he treated parliamentary attendance so casually when he was the MP for the seat of Fairfax.

Palmer has always been more interested in his true vocation in life, which is making a massive amount of money. At least this time he won’t have to get his advertising money out of the Townsville refinery he closed so cruelly but now proposes to reopen after the election.

While the odds are still against him, you have to give Scott Morrison some points for running a tight, disciplined campaign. There is now a similarity in every election campaign. The Coalition says you can’t trust Labor to mind the till. They can point to the number of times Wayne Swan promised a surplus and failed to deliver. Labor can retaliate by raising just how much the national debt has risen under Morrison’s management but it seems Julie Bishop’s departure from politics is coming at the wrong time for the PM. With Christian Porter struggling to hold his seat, Bishop would have been the symbol of Liberal supremacy. She has been popular in the west and indeed in the whole of the country for a very long time and her presence will be sorely missed.

In fact, it is very hard to find a positive omen for the Liberals at the moment. At every turn they seem thwarted. When your time is up, it is marvellous how many times your luck runs out as well. Tony Abbott was first elected as the member for Warringah in 1994 and still holds what would normally be in the unsurmountable safe seat category — but this is no ordinary election and Abbott is not your ordinary candidate.

GetUp will throw enormous sums in pursuit of the defeat of the man they have so successfully demonised. Zali Steggall’s campaign launch in a Manly park ably demonstrated how far out of her depth she really is. Her knowledge of politics and policies is woefully deficient and I trust she has been trying to cram some useful political knowledge into her head over the past few weeks.

Abbott would get my preference over Steggall each and every time. He is a man of faith and that is often sneered at in these times, but he stands for something. I am unable to say the same about his opponent, although her obvious fear of debating Abbott speaks for itself.

Bill Shorten is doing his bit to transform election campaigns from slick advertising emphasis to a real focus on policy. For someone who has only to stay on his feet to win the election, he continues to release detailed policies and so far has had great success with this approach. Provided there are no glaring errors, this will work. Mind you, Labor could do without another numbers error from Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen. Were I in Shorten’s shoes, I’d make no new promises prior to the election except at the official party launch.