Families of former PMs slam Clive Palmer over false UAP claims

The families of Robert Menzies and Joe Lyons have rebuked Clive Palmer for claiming they were past leaders of his party.

Clive Palmer at his office in Brisbane. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The families of former prime ministers Robert Menzies and Joe Lyons have rebuked Clive Palmer for falsely claiming they were past leaders of his United Australia Party.

Menzies’ daughter Heather Henderson and Lyons’s granddaughter Libby Lyons are appalled their families are being linked to Mr Palmer’s populist party, which also claims Billy Hughes as a former leader.

Ms Henderson said she was “horrified” to learn Mr Palmer was trading on her ­father’s legacy. She said there was no connection between Mr Palmer’s party and the UAP, which Menzies led from 1939-41 and 1943-45.

“It is dreadful and terribly dishonest,” she said. “He is trading on the names of Hughes, Lyons and Menzies when in fact they have no relation to his party at all.

“It is absurd to think there is a connection to the old United Australia Party.”

Ms Lyons, director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, said Mr Palmer’s party was a “crass ­rebrand” of the old UAP.

“As the granddaughter of Joe and Enid Lyons, it is disappointing to see the leader of the current United Australia Party claim that his party is the same party as that of Joseph Lyons, Billy Hughes and Robert Menzies,” she said.

“The current version of the UAP is a crass and superficial rebrand of the Palmer United Party.”

Mr Palmer claims the former prime ministers were leaders of his party. “Our history — United Australia Party prime ministers,” his website says above portraits of Lyons, Hughes and Menzies. The UAP was led by Lyons from 1931-39 and Hughes from 1941-43. (Hughes was not prime minister when leading the UAP.)

The UAP was founded in 1931 and was dissolved in 1945.

In 2013, Mr Palmer founded a new United Australia Party but soon changed its name to Palmer United Party. He registered the United Australia Party last year.

The UAP head office in Brisbane was contacted for a response.