Palmer’s $7m ad blitz falling on deaf ears
Clive Palmer’s record political advertising blitz has fallen flat, with Newspoll showing his party is running next to last in his seat.
Clive Palmer’s record-breaking political advertising blitz has fallen flat where it counts most, with Newspoll showing his party is running next to last in the north Queensland seat he is eyeing to return to parliament.
Conducted exclusively for The Australian, the first survey of voters in the ultra-marginal Townsville electorate of Herbert since Mr Palmer announced he would stand there for the United Australia Party finds support for both the ALP and Liberal National Party continues to lag, the opening he seeks to exploit.
Neither major party could muster more than 32 per cent of the primary vote, leaving Labor a nose in front, 51-49, when preferences were factored in.
The Palmer party is on 8 per cent, behind Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party, each on 9 per cent, and one point ahead of the Greens on 7 per cent.
This will be a disappointing return for Mr Palmer after his hefty advertising outlay in Townsville, part of a national campaign that has cost the rich-listed businessman more than $7 million in the past four months.
Half of that unprecedented spend has taken place since January 1.
Newspoll’s finding that one-in-three Townsville voters plumped for a minor party sends a powerful message at a time when disillusionment with mainstream politics continues to erode support for Labor and the Liberal-Nationals Coalition in the regions.
In Herbert, neither of the majors can win without preferences from One Nation, KAP or UAP, underlining the capacity of right-wing populists to disrupt the established two-party order.
Swinging Townsville voters Daniel Di Bella, 31, and Kaylene Bradd, 34, say their support is an election-by-election proposition.
Ms Bradd, an office worker, went for the LNP in 2016 when Labor’s Cathy O’Toole sneaked home by only 37 votes in Herbert, the tightest finish in the country. The seat’s ongoing importance is reflected in the travels of Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten: both are regular visitors to Townsville.
Mr Di Bella, who works on a blast crew at an open-cut coalmine near Moranbah, five hours away by road, voted for KAP at the 2017 Queensland election and would go for a job at the mothballed Queensland Nickel refinery at Yabulu north of Towns-ville if Mr Palmer reopened it.
“I’m not a true believer in Labor, Liberal, whatever … I go with whoever is doing something for the community,” he said.
Partner Ms Bradd said: “I’m the same as Dan. I am not really stuck on one person.”
The collapse of the QNI plant in 2016 that threw nearly 800 locals out of work casts a long shadow.
Not only did the short-changing of the sacked workers of their entitlements shred what was left of Mr Palmer’s reputation — it had already been tarnished by a stormy term in federal parliament at the helm of the short-lived Palmer United Party — the hit to the local economy continues to show in the city’s high unemployment rate.
This stood at 8.7 per cent as of the June quarter, three points above the national average.
Since announcing he would run for Herbert, Mr Palmer has flooded the Townsville airwaves with high-rotation ads blaming Queensland Nickel’s liquidators for the refinery going under and spruiking his new party, UAP.
But Newspoll shows the electorate’s perception of him remains largely unfavourable. Nearly two-thirds of the 509 voters surveyed last Thursday, 65 per cent, had a negative view of Mr Palmer, against 24 per cent with a positive opinion.
Only 8 per cent of local voters were undecided.
The emergence of UAP seems to have hit One Nation hardest, carving 4.5 points off its 2016 result of 13.5 per cent in the Townsville seat.
KAP is up 2.1 points, equalling One Nation on 9 per cent, continuing the Katter party’s revival in north Queensland after a solid showing at the past state election.
On these numbers, Ms O’Toole would be narrowly returned on Greens preferences and those leaking from the populist parties, though a rerun of the vote swap that KAP and One Nation had in 2017 would make this more problematic for Labor.
As the Coalition’s standard bearer in Queensland, the LNP will be alarmed by the slide in its primary vote in Herbert, from the 35.5 per cent on which it lost the seat in 2016 to 32 per cent.
Labor’s vote is up slightly, from 30.5 per cent at the last election to 32 per cent.
For either One Nation, KAP or Mr Palmer’s UAP to stand any chance of a breakthrough win, they would have to push their primary vote above 20 per cent and capitalise on further suppression of the major parties’ vote.
This happened at the 2017 Queensland election in the state seat of Hinchinbrook, which takes in Townsville’s northern beaches suburbs. KAP’s Nick Dametto got up on a third-placed primary vote of 20.9 per cent, leapfrogging One Nation (22 per cent) and the LNP incumbent (30.1 per cent) on preferences. Labor finished fourth on a primary vote of 19 per cent.
But, as Newspoll reveals, Mr Palmer’s entry has cannibalised the “protest” vote on the Right.
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