Footpath and Palmer cop a Shorten pounding

Bill Shorten has taken a swipe at Clive Palmer’s ad campaign – and he’s won plenty of allies in Townsville.

Rugby league great Johnathan Thurston and Bill Shorten on a morning run in Townsville yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith

Bill Shorten criticised Clive Palmer in front of construction workers in Townsville yesterday as the billionaire’s support and potential preference deal with the Coalition threatened to cost Labor the seat of Herbert.

The Opposition Leader, who started his day with a run alongside former North Queensland rugby league star Johnathan Thurston, told workers in the ­nation’s most marginal electorate he was “gobsmacked” Mr Palmer was running for parliament when he owed workers from the defunct Queensland Nickel mine “millions of dollars”.

Tuesday’s Newspoll shows Mr Palmer’s United Australia Party has 14 per cent of the primary vote in the seat held by Cathy O’Toole, and a preference deal between the UAP and the Liberal National Party could scupper Labor’s hopes of holding the seat, which it won by 37 votes in 2016.

“Every time he sends you a text message, send him one back saying, ‘Where is the money for the workers in Townsville?’,” Mr Shorten said.

“He is running for parliament and he owes millions of dollars and the taxpayer has bailed him out.

“It is easy enough for someone to say ‘They are a protest vote, Liberal and Labor are bad, we will go for a third party’.

“The problem is that what they say here is not what they do in Canberra.”

Construction workers Luke Baker and Chris Shepherd said they were flabbergasted Mr Palmer’s $30 million-plus advertising campaign was gaining support in Townsville, given his role in the collapse of Queensland Nickel.

“Queensland Nickel has shut down without him paying any of his workers and now he has come back on the scene and is flooding the market with his billboards,” Mr Baker said.

“Where is all the money for the workers? You’ve got this $30m to spend on advertising but all these workers have got families, they’ve (now) got to sell their houses.”

Mr Shepherd said Mr Palmer had “squashed a lot of people in Townsville”.

“It wouldn’t enter my mind to vote for him at all, he is a grub,” Mr Shepherd said.

“He has done this to the workers in Townsville.”

In the Queensland central coast town of Gladstone, resident John Bell warned Mr Palmer’s support was growing because he was “saying things that Liberal and Labor are too nervous to say”.

Mr Bell said with the major parties squabbling about their support for the coal sector, the UAP leader was promising more jobs in the ­region and a crackdown on foreign investment.

“Clive Palmer is saying a lot of things that are hitting the button for people,” Mr Bell said.

“A lot of the things he is talking about is industrial development.

“I listened to one of his speeches by accident and it’s clear to me he is going to hit the buttons for ­ordinary working Queenslanders.

“I suspect the more educated Queenslanders would say ‘Don’t trust that guy’, but I think ordinary working Queenslanders will say ‘That guy is saying what the other two parties aren’t brave enough to say’.”