Clive Palmer bankrolls Townsville mayoral opponent Greg Dowling
No one can remember any mayoral candidate attracting $625,000 in campaign donations, let alone from a single donor.
He is the mining magnate who has demonstrated he will spend millions of dollars to get the political outcome he wants. She is the mayor of a tropical city down on its luck and struggling with a youth crime problem but determined to win a third term to lead its recovery.
The battle between billionaire Clive Palmer and Jenny Hill, mayor of Townsville, will come to a head in a little over two weeks at the end of an extraordinary council election campaign where Mr Palmer’s deep pockets have featured heavily despite his name not appearing on the ballot paper.
Not content with chipping in $505,000 to kickstart the campaign of his preferred candidate for Townsville mayor, former State of Origin rugby league great Greg Dowling, Mr Palmer has since donated another $120,000.
No one can remember any council candidate in Queensland attracting $625,000 in campaign donations, let alone from a single donor, and let alone for a race like Townsville council, where money politics has never before been a factor in elections.
The payments, from Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy company, easily amount to the biggest contribution to a single campaign in Queensland’s March 28 local government elections.
Electoral Commission of Queensland records show the latest $120,000 donation was made last week to Mr Dowling’s It’s Time for Townsville council campaign.
Mr Dowling is trying to unseat incumbent Ms Hill, a long-time political opponent of Mr Palmer who has criticised his attitude towards the city, still reeling from the shutdown of his Yabulu nickel refinery in 2016 that cost about 800 jobs.
Mr Palmer successfully sued the mayor for defamation two years ago. With much fanfare, he announced in January that the $50,000 payout he received would go to Mr Dowling’s mayoral campaign.
Mr Dowling said last week he had spent all of the previous $505,000 total in donations Mr Palmer had given on various campaign activities.
The lion’s share of the money has been invested in advertising, with the candidate having a slick website and social media presence and billboards featuring Mr Dowling on Mr Palmer’s signature yellow banners popping up around Townsville.
The big spend on the mayoral campaign is in contrast to Mr Palmer’s dealings with parliamentary officials pursuing an outstanding debt he incurred while he was a federal MP.
The parliamentary expenses watchdog has referred him to a debt collection agency over money still owed from his short time in parliament.
Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority officials told Senate estimates on March 2 that it would pursue Mr Palmer’s outstanding debt to the commonwealth of $6713.15.
He accrued the debt by overspending on travel for his staff when he was the MP for Fairfax from 2013 to 2016. The debt has now been outstanding for more than three years.
By contrast, Ms Hill, running for her third term as Townsville mayor, has amassed just under $32,700 in donations for her campaign team and $1000 for her personal campaign.
For her part, Ms Hill says “we are not running an agenda forced on us by other people”.
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