Election 2022: Palmer preferences Labor ahead of Dutton in Dickson

Clive Palmer has made good on plans to campaign against Peter Dutton.

Clive Palmer. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Clive Palmer has made good on plans to campaign against Peter Dutton, who was last year instrumental in ousting Queensland LNP executives linked to the billionaire businessman.

Mr Dutton has been listed second last, below Labor, on United Australia Party how-to-vote cards in his seat of Dickson in southeast Queensland, where the UAP won 2.2 per cent of the primary vote at the 2019 federal election.

The Australian reported in July that multiple sources had said Mr Palmer intended to specifically target Mr Dutton, who played a key role in overhauling the LNP’s hierarchy at the party’s state convention last year.

In November, Mr Palmer denied the report, saying he wouldn’t be targeting Mr Dutton personally. “We will be targeting every seat, not just Peter Dutton,” Mr Palmer said. “I’ve met Peter Dutton, he’s had breakfast with me this year, he’s quite friendly, he’s not somebody I’ve had any fight with. I don’t think it’s about targeting individuals, there are bigger ­issues at stake, it’s about policy.”

Close ties between Mr Palmer and former high-ranking members of the LNP’s organisational wing were at the centre of internal debate ahead of the purge led by Mr Dutton and state Opposition Leader David Crisafulli.

Photographs of former LNP presidents Gary Spence, Bruce McIver and David Hutchinson aboard Mr Palmer’s yacht in the Brisbane River on the night of the 2020 election loss fuelled grassroots anger over the links with the businessman, who quit the LNP to form his own party after his public spat with former premier Campbell Newman.

UAP Dickson candidate Alina Ward’s how-to-vote cards, handed out at polling booths this week, have Mr Dutton seventh out of eight candidates, behind Labor’s Ali France in fifth. Only Greens candidate Vinnie Batten was listed below Mr Dutton.

UAP how-to-vote cards in the battleground Queensland seats of Brisbane, Ryan, Flynn, Leichhardt and Longman have listed LNP candidates ahead of Labor.

Preference flows from the UAP and One Nation were more favourable for the Coalition in 2019 than in previous elections.