Palmer picks Covid fight with Liberals, Labor

The Queensland billionaire has launched a pre-­election attack declaring his right to freedom of speech is under threat.

Clive Palmer has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. Picture: Dan Peled

Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer has launched a pre-­election attack on Scott Morrison, the Liberal Party, Labor and health bureaucrats, declaring his right to freedom of speech is under threat.

Mr Palmer – who is expected to bankroll candidates and an advertising blitz aimed at destabilising the Liberal and Labor parties – will target rising anger over lockdowns and vaccine hesitancy ahead of the federal election.

The former federal MP said he was “retired from politics” but would support candidates who “coalesce” in favour of freedom.

The Australian understands Mr Palmer, former Queensland premier Campbell Newman, former Liberal Party MP Craig Kelly, disaffected Nationals MP George Christensen and others were in contact over growing dissent in conservative ranks over the Morrison government’s handling of the pandemic.

There has been a groundswell of pushback in Queensland – a key state for the Coalition – where the Liberal National Party organisation is in internal warfare.

Senior government figures have expressed concern a Palmer-backed advertising blitz, similar to the one that eviscerated Bill Shorten’s 2019 campaign, could be “damaging” if it took conservative voters from the Coalition.

Mr Palmer invoked Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, in supporting the right of Liberal MPs to express their right to cross the floor and differ from the party line, saying “if you believe in parliamentary democracy, you believe in ­opposition”.

“The real message is not about Campbell Newman, it’s not about me, it’s not about Craig Kelly – it’s about what we are talking about,” Mr Palmer said.

The 67-year-old, who is pushing for alternative treatments for Covid-19, attacked the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister for what he described as a “barbecuing” of Mr Christensen last week over comments the Dawson MP made criticising Covid-19 ­restrictions.

The United Australia Party founder, who plans to run candidates at the election due by May, said allowing Labor an opportunity to target Mr Christensen in the parliament was an “example” to other MPs who spoke against government policy. “I’m retired from politics. I don’t want to do politics personally. What I find happening is a massive number of people are not happy with the Liberal and Labor parties,” he said.

Mr Palmer, a former adviser to Queensland’s longest-serving premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and who claims the national cabinet is “unconstitutional”, said he was ­focused on bringing “everyone ­together who are contrary to what the Labor and Liberal parties want to do”.

“When it comes to lockdowns, when it comes to restricting the economy, when it comes to paying out huge benefits to people, when it comes to the army patrolling streets, greater police powers, when it comes to arbitrary arrests, when it comes to censorship. They (the Liberals and Labor) are the real Coalition in this,” he said.

Attempting to tap into vaccine hesitancy and lockdown frustration, Mr Palmer has sent legal letters to the federal government and WA government threatening to fund class actions against them over the vaccine rollout if individuals were forced to have the jab.

Mr Palmer, who refused to say whether he had been vaccinated and claimed he had been “inundated” with requests for support from people including ambulance drivers who did not want to get jabbed, said rhetoric from governments that people could lose their jobs, have their businesses shut down or “can’t go to the football” was unhelpful.

He will use overseas examples of vaccinated people in the US, ­Israel, Britain, Singapore and elsewhere being infected with Covid-19 and what he described as over-reach from health bureaucrats to prosecute his argument, which has been trashed by the federal government, Therapeutic Goods Administration, Labor and others.

Mr Palmer said interference with his pre-election advertising blitz – which has been described by Coalition and Labor MPs as “disinformation” – would impeach “freedom of the press, the right for different opinions, and Australians’ right to know”.