‘Donkeys’: Clive Palmer’s UAP party’s bizarre quip at Daniel Andrews

The new UAP leader in Victoria has taken aim at Premier Daniel Andrews in a dramatic press conference.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – NewsWire Photos October 12, 2022: UAP leader Clive Palmer is seen during a press conference in Melbourne. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Ascui

The newly-minted Victorian leader of Clive Palmer’s political party has taken aim at the state’s premier in a dramatic press conference

Billionaire Mr Palmer announced former Liberal MP Geoff Shaw would head the United Australia Party on Wednesday ahead of the Victorian election next month.

Mr Shaw said he was running in a bid to help oust Daniel Andrews’ Labor government from power.

“Simply I’m standing because I’m fed up with Dan Andrews,” he said.

“Never again do I want Dan, or his Labor donkeys, running Victoria.

UAP leader Clive Palmer with the newly appointed Victorian Leader of the UAP, Geoff Shaw on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Ascui

“For many years we’ve suffered and we’re still suffering as Victorians because of policies that have destroyed families, small businesses, and jobs … and those policies are the direct result and they lay at the feet of Daniel Andrews in his Labor cohorts.”

Mr Shaw previously served as the member for Frankston from 2010 to 2014, first as a Liberal MP and as an independent for the latter two years.

He was suspended by the parliament after threats to bring down then-Premier Denis Napthine’s government.

Mr Shaw was also charged by police with 23 counts of obtaining financial benefit by deception and one of misconduct in public office in 2013.

The charges were later dropped.

UAP Federal senator Ralph Babet told reporters the Victorian government’s actions during the pandemic had made the state a “people’s socialist republic” with a “supreme leader”.

“Our state is in more than $100 billion dollars of debt more than any other state in our Commonwealth,” he said.

“We Victorians have had enough of the government interfering in our lives, our businesses our homes with absurd overreach like the permanent pandemic powers, which has enabled one man to act like a quasi dictator.

UAP leader Clive Palmer confirmed he is partially funding the Victorian effort. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Ascui

“We Victorians have had enough of one man - his government and his clear incompetence as a leader. The red shirts scandal, hotel quarantine, no ambulances, school closures, toxic soil in the west, the Belt and Road fiasco.”

Mr Palmer echoed his colleague’s sensational statements, confirming he is partially funding the UAP’s Victorian run.

“Well, I certainly think there’s a great there’s a great groundswell of people that are object to people that are in favour of the activities that did Andrew, but it’s not for me to decide because it’ll be decided by Victorians in the final analysis, where the preferences will go,” he said.

Mr Babet was the only UAP Senator from Victoria elected at the Federal election, when the party lost its only lower house seat.