PETER VAN ONSELEN: Why Albanese should be worried about Clive Palmer’s new anti-woke ‘Make Australia Great Again’ party
Clive Palmer plans to ‘Make Australia Great Again’ by launching a new political party with the aim of mirroring many of Donald Trump’s policies Down Under.
The ‘Trumpet of the Patriots’ party will run candidates at the next federal election, and is likely to see the Aussie billionaire spend tens of millions of dollars on a national advertising campaign that will target what is wrong with woke politicking in this country, and what needs to change to turn Australia’s economic and social fortunes around.
So what impact will the new party have on who wins the next federal election?
Palmer claims that the Peter Dutton led opposition isn’t going hard enough condemning woke policies, so his new party will give voters a choice the major parties aren’t providing.
But it is Labor that likely has more to be worried about than the Coalition.
The sideshow – because let’s face it that is what this is – is unlikely to deliver Palmer lower house seats or control of the senate. How it chooses to distribute its preferences on its how-to-vote cards, however, could play a significant role in which major party forms government.
Alongside the impact of any campaign advertising blitz.
Labor has likely more to be worried about by Clive Palmer’s ‘Trumpet of the Patriots’ party
Clive Palmer (above) plans to ‘Make Australia Great Again’ by aiming to mirroring many of Donald Trump ‘s policies Down Under with his new ‘Trumpet of the Patriots’ party
No first term Australian government has lost a re-election bid since 1931. Despite such history, the Albanese government is trailing in the polls just weeks out from the election being called. And the PM has very low personal popularity.
With neither major party expected to be in a position to form majority government the next election is expected to be close.
Preference flows from Palmer’s new party are highly likely to favour the Coalition. If Team Palmer hires large numbers of people to hand out how-to-vote cards directing preferences the Coalition’s way, the impact will be more significant.
But more important than any of that will be the damage the new party’s big spending advertising campaign might do to the Labor brand, Albo’s in particular.
Daily Mail Australia understands it will target Albo personally as a woke out-of-touch leader incapable of delivering the economic policies that matter to ‘make Australia great again’.
In the context of a cost-of-living election, an advertising blitz along such lines is the last thing Labor strategists want to have to deal with. Palmer’s party’s pitch is likely to say ‘the quiet parts out loud’ that Team Dutton can’t or won’t, because they need to hold the political centre to win the general election against Labor.
That is a concern Palmer doesn’t have.
Preference flows from Palmer’s new party are highly likely to favour the Coalition, writes Peter van Onselen
Under Australia’s electoral rules, voting and preferencing are compulsory, meaning that major parties look to win over the centre ground within the electorate. In non-compulsory voting systems such as the US, the centre doesn’t always turn out to vote on election day.
Major parties in non-compulsory systems seek to ‘get out the vote’ by appealing to their left and right wing party bases, which can cause centrist voters to stay at home and not vote at all.
While Palmer’s new party is more likely to take first preference votes away from the Coalition than Labor, they will flow back via preferences anyway. The same way Green preferences flow back to the Labor Party.
The uniqueness of the Australian electoral system helps explain why our major parties haven’t lurched as far left or right as major parties have in other countries. Minor parties fill that void in Australia instead.
Palmer’s previous political party – the Palmer United Party – spent up big on a national advertising campaign criticising Bill Shorten in the lead up to the 2019 election, to the tune of $60million. And its preferences flowed the Coalition’s way on election night. Both aspects of that Palmer campaign helped Morrison win what had been deemed an unwinnable election.
The 2019 election had been considered ‘unloseable’ for the Labor opposition, with the Morrison government having trailed Team Shorten in every published opinion poll prior to election day, before winning comfortably on the night. Many political analysts as well as major party insiders credited the Palmer advertising blitz for helping to turn the electoral tide against Shorten.
Team Dutton will be hoping for a similar outcome at this year’s federal election.
