Palmer takes aim at coal mining seat of Hunter as fellow believers worry about crowded field

Clive Palmer is taking aim at winning the coal mining seat of Hunter at the upcoming election, placing full-page ads in News Corp tabloids promoting his candidate Suellen Wrightson in the electorate formerly held by right-wing Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon. 

In the ads, Wrightson claims “Australians have suffered from a duopoly of power by the Labor and Liberal parties having their deals designed to take the Australian people’s money for their own use”. 

In a reference to Palmer’s clear inspiration for his new tilt at political power, US President Donald Trump, Wrightson says: “The world is changing. In the United States of America, government waste and corruption are finally being exposed.”

Palmer made his intentions clear yesterday with the launch of his new party Trumpet of Patriots. While the billionaire was wholly unsuccessful at capturing any lower house seats at the previous election, despite throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at that campaign, election analyst William Bowe said it wouldn’t be impossible things could turn out differently this time around. 

“Palmer is clearly going all out to get Wrightson elected in Hunter, and [it’s] not a bad seat for him to choose,” said Bowe, who runs the blog The Poll Bludger. 

“Hunter, where One Nation did particularly well in 2019, is a coal mining seat that has a lot in common with pro-Trump territory like West Virginia and the rural midwest.”

Labor’s Dan Repacholi won the seat in 2022, with a post-election margin of 4% against the Nationals.

Palmer told Nine newspapers overnight he would be targeting Coalition seats in his new campaign, but Trumpet of Patriots won’t be the only conservative challenger in the race. 

Lyle Shelton’s Family First Party clearly felt the heat after Palmer’s announcement, issuing a media release where he warned the new outfit would risk fragmenting the conservative vote.

“While we wish Clive’s latest venture all the best, we would encourage people to consider what is sustainable and what can stand the test of time,” Shelton said in the media release. 

The former managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby and prominent “No” campaigner in the marriage equality survey appears to be fonder of another one of his rivals, ex-Queensland Coalition senator Gerard Rennick. 

Australian Electoral Commission documents show Shelton’s party consented to Rennick calling his new party Gerard Rennick People First. Had Family First not done so, it’s possible the electoral commission would have deemed the two names too similar. 

But Shelton played down the affinity between the two parties — and any perceived animosity towards Trumpet of Patriots — in a comment to Crikey. 

“Our statement was not a case of feeling more or less positive about either. We simply recognise the obvious — the more of us in the space, the more the vote will be fragmented,” Shelton said. “But the reality is citizens in Australia are free to organise politically and we chose not to impede Senator Rennick’s plans to establish his own party.” 

“Where values align we will seek to collaborate and hope we can do so with Mr Palmer’s new party as well. Of course Family First would have preferred that two new parties on the centre right did not emerge, but again, that is democracy. We are three-and-half-years into the rebuild of Family First and are committed to the long haul well beyond the current electoral cycle.”

A spokesperson for Palmer refused to comment when contacted by Crikey on Wednesday. Perhaps inspired by Trump’s disdain of the media, the person wrote in a text message: “Not interested in talking to cricket.”

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