Palmer’s interloper trio
THREE of four Northern Territory candidates for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party live in Queensland.
The party’s Lingiari candidate Daniel Hodgson registered his address with the Australian Electoral Commission as Brisbane’s leafy suburb of Bardon, while Senate hopeful Michael Wolf’s LinkedIn profile lists him as living in Brisbane.
The party’s second Senate choice, Ross McRobert, is also from Queensland.
Calls to all three interstate interlopers went straight to voicemail yesterday. Questions sent via email from the Sunday Territorian asking if the three had ever set foot in the NT were ignored.
Perennially party-hopping political aspirant Raj Samson is the only of Mr Palmer’s northern quartet to live locally, and the only one to have his phone on yesterday.
Mr Samson, also known as Raj Samson Rajwin and Tilak Raj, previously contested the Darwin and Palmerston council elections. He pulled out of the 2016 NT election after being preselected by 1 Territory in the seat of Blain because he was not an Australian citizen at the time.
Mr Samson said he had only met his three fellow candidates at a United Party conference in Brisbane.
“I don’t know (where they live) but I presume they must live in the NT or have connections to the NT . . . many people have houses in many different places,” he said.
Mr Samson also told the Sunday Territorian he wasn’t sure if he was behind the wheel of an older model Mercedes marked with his political signage seen driving erratically down Wishart Rd Friday afternoon.
Video footage shows the vehicle, with a faulty brake light, swerving across the road.
“I’m not sure if I was driving the car. I generally don’t do that but I don’t know,” Mr Samson said.
He said that if elected, a United Australia Party government could build fast trains to connect Darwin’s city with its outer suburbs and create special taxation zones in regional areas.
“If (the seat of Solomon) was given to me, I can make the NT the richest state in the world. I can make it heaven,” he said.