‘Aussie Trump’ splashes cash in election bid
GOLD COAST: A brash, self-promoting billionaire with political ambition and a string of controversies in his wake, Clive Palmer not only sounds like Australia’s answer to Donald Trump, that is exactly who he is modelling himself on.
The businessman has adopted the slogan “Make Australia Great” for his United Australia Party, repeatedly bashed China and is positioning himself as an upstart outsider ahead of the country’s parliamentary election tomorrow.
A key difference between the two populists is that the now-US president campaigned with the backing of a mainstream political party, whereas Palmer has entered the electoral race on his own terms.
Australian politics is traditionally dominated by two major political forces: the conservative LiberalNational coalition and the centre-left Labor Party.
Palmer is giving them a run for their money, literally.
The mining magnate claims to be spending about A$60mil (RM173mil) on election advertising -- more than the two major parties combined -running TV ads, plastering his face on bright yellow billboards across the country, and sending unsolicited text messages to voters.
His party has entered candidates in all of the 151 lower house seats, although at least one was sacked after peddling 9/11 conspiracy theories. Palmer started in the property business but made his fortune in Australia’s booming resources sector and is now worth an estimated A$2.6bil (RM7.5bil), according to Forbes magazine.
He has been embroiled in a series of high-profile legal battles, including with a Chinese state-owned company and workers at one of his own mines, who have not been fully paid.
No stranger to Australian politics, Palmer was elected to the House of Representatives in 2013 on a waferthin margin of 53 votes.
Three of his party’s candidates also won Senate seats, but the alliance quickly crumbled and Palmer served just three years in Parliament -- during which he was criticised for failing to show up regularly -- before declaring he was retiring from politics.
So will Australian voters follow their American cousins and pull the lever for a maverick billionaire?
Analysts say the party is not in serious contention to win even a single seat in the House of Representatives, where a party must gain 76 seats to form a government.