Election 2022: Writing’s on the wall: Clive Palmer ‘prefers’ Greens

‘Preference whisperer’ Glenn Druery says UAP chairman Clive Palmer has seen the ‘writing on the wall’ and is positioning for a Labor victory at the May election.

United Australia Party chairman Clive Palmer at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

“Preference whisperer” Glenn Druery says United Australia Party chairman Clive Palmer has seen the “writing on the wall” and is positioning for a Labor victory at the May election.

In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra, Mr Palmer raised the possibility of preferencing the Greens above the two major parties, with Mr Druery saying the mining magnate had backed in Greens candidates in the 2014 Victorian state election.

Mr Palmer’s comments were met with anger and scepticism by Greens leader Adam Bandt, who said he didn’t “believe him for a second”.

“It won’t stop the Greens pushing for a 6 per cent billionaire’s tax on Clive and his mates or stopping their new coal and gas projects,” he told the Australian.

During the 2019 campaign, Mr Palmer poured in about $60m to advertising, most of which targeted the Labor Party and leader Bill Shorten and contributing to the ALP loss at the hands of Scott Morrison and the Coalition.

Mr Palmer, who says he plans to spend $70m at the upcoming election, revealed he now regretted backing in the Prime Minister.

“Before that election, I indicated that people should vote for Scott Morrison … but the reality was I didn’t want Australia to rack up debts and be in the position we’re now faced with,” he said.

“What we found is that Morrison adopted worse policies than Labor in relation to the amount of debt that we’ve had. So this is a critical thing. You have to think they’re pretty hopeless the people running it at the moment and they need a bit of a shake-up.”

Mr Palmer did indicate the UAP could support some members of the Coalition, specifically those who crossed the floor to support UAP leader Craig Kelly’s fight against vaccine mandates.

“If you think about no mandatory vaccinations, no mandatory vaccine passports and these things that went up in the parliament, we’ve seen some people cross the floor with Craig Kelly and support them,” he said.

“Those sort of people would be people that we would think ... naturally that we should preference. Whether that extends to the whole party, it’s difficult to say.”

When pressed on who he would tell voters to preference at the polls, Mr Palmer said he would put the Greens ahead of the Coalition and Labor. “From my personal perspective, I think I’d put the Greens ahead of Liberal and Labor ... Because they haven’t been in government and haven’t been responsible for this debt. The debt we see has been causing the main problem in Australia.”

Mr Druery said Mr Palmer was positioning himself for a Labor victory at the May election.

“I think Clive sees the writing on the wall,” he said. “This time, I feel it’s going to be difficult for Scott Morrison to generate another one of his ‘miracles’.

“Clive understands this could be the End of Days for Morrison and so Clive can’t be seen to be kicking too hard at Labor.”

On preferencing the Greens, Mr Druery said the comment sounded “like a bit of a furphy” and doubted many UAP supporters would do so.

Mr Palmer also used the NPC address to canvas a number of UAP policies, including $40bn in funding to be given “directly to hospitals”, a 20 per cent tax concession for people who lived 200km or more from a major city and capping mortgage rates for households to 3 per cent or less for the next five years.