Clive Palmer announces Donald Trump-inspired party Trumpet of Patriots
Billionaire Clive Palmer has declared his new political party will be inspired by Donald Trump’s policies on government waste, trade and the ‘gender agenda’.
Billionaire Clive Palmer says his new political party will be inspired by Donald Trump’s policies on government waste, trade and the “gender agenda”, as the mining magnate promised another multi-million-dollar spending blitz at the upcoming election.
The newly registered Trumpet of Patriots elected Mr Palmer as its chairman last year and intends to run candidates in every seat across the country. While opting not to run as a candidate himself because of his age, the 71-year-old confirmed he would spend “whatever is required” to win seats.
“The party believes in the policies of Donald Trump, which is shown to be effective in bringing management back on track,” he said at the launch of Trumpet of Patriots in Canberra on Wednesday. “Peter Dutton has stated the he’s no Donald Trump, and we agree with him. Albanese has presided over a declining standard of living for our country in each and every year he served as prime minister. Australia needs Trump policies.
“Trumpet of Patriots will make Australia great again.”
As part of this vision for Australia, Mr Palmer vowed to reduce the rate of immigration, which he said was currently “destroying our infrastructure, roads, schools and hospitals”, and make a suite of changes to women’s sport and gender-affirming healthcare.
“We don’t want men in women’s sports, and we don’t want males dressed as females, confusing our children in our schools,” he said.
“All children should be entitled to a normal, safe environment in our schools and public toilets. All children must be entitled to decide who they are and what their sexual orientation is when they’re adults, not have it foisted on them before they’ve even commenced puberty.”
He also left the door open to enforcing the same sort of trade tariffs as Mr Trump,
Mr Palmer’s move to take the helm of a new political outfit follows the Australian Electoral Commission’s decision to disallow the United Australia Party from re-registering, after UAP senator Ralph Babet deregistered the party in 2022 due to “administrative reasons”.
The Trumpet of Patriots is calling on the more than 80,000 UAP members to join its ranks instead, while Senator Babet will remain a UAP representative until he faces re-election in 2028. Senator Babet was the only UAP member elected in 2022, despite Mr Palmer having spent more than $123m on his campaign.
Mr Palmer claimed Australia had been governed by a “uniparty” for many years, with Labor and the Coalition largely working together, and that the nation had not had “real democracy” as a result.
“That’s why we haven’t brought the hard questions to government departments that Elon Musk is doing in Washington at the moment, and we’ve wasted the public’s money,” he said.
Mr Musk, the owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, was given carriage of the Department of Government Efficiency, charged with cutting staffing levels across the US public service.
Mr Palmer said it was a “good investment” of his money to free Australia of the “waste and corruption that is occupying the public service and the government”.
“I’m more than happy to spend my funds on something productive, defending the right of free speech, and whatever is required to be spent,” he said.
Mr Palmer’s announcement comes in the wake of new legislation agreed to by Labor and the Coalition that will cap electoral spending and donations, but which will not be applied until the election after next.
“The Labor and the Liberal parties got together to make sure that we could never compete with them,” Mr Palmer, who is looking to challenge the legislation in the High Court, said.
The Prime Minister accused Mr Palmer of “distorting democracy” and said the billionaire was not putting forwards “serious policies”.
“People are entitled to run, but it’s a distortion of democracy when you have an individual spending $100m on a campaign right around the country,” he said.
“I’ve seen these strange ads have been appearing for months now. I’m not sure what the objective of them is … if you’re a serious political party, then you have to have serious policies.”
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