Billionaire Clive Palmer has announced he’s launching a new political party in Australia that will emulate the policies of US President Donald Trump.
“Trumpet of Patriots will put Australians first and Make Australia Great Again,” Palmer told the media on Wednesday as the new party was launched, echoing the campaign slogan of the US President.
Palmer also said his new party would only recognise two genders, male and female, and alluded to banning transgender people from working in the education system.
“We don’t want men in women’s sports and we don’t want males dressed as females confusing our children’s in our schools,’ he said.
Palmer’s previous party The United Australia Party was deregistered, and in its place he’s become the President of another group that’s now taken on a new name.
Most recently the party was named the Australian Federation Party and it’s run by businessman and political strategist Glenn Dewhurst. Over the years its gone by several different names, but in November last year they updated their name with the Australian Electoral Commission.
Since first being registered in 2004 the party has been the Country Alliance, the Australian Country Party, and the Australian Federation Party.
Palmer will serve as the party’s president, but has ruled out a return to parliament himself. He told a media conference this morning that the new party would hope to run candidates in as many seats as possible.
He also introduced the party’s leader Suellen Wrightson who will contest the New South Wales seat of Hunter. Palmer boasted that he believed that the party could win enough seats to form government and make Wrightson the next Prime Minister.
The 2025 federal election will be the last one before new legislation limits the amount of donations people can make to political parties. In recent elections Palmer has made enormous financial donations to his own political parties, splurged on massive advertising campaigns with little result.
In 2022, Palmer spent over $120 million on the United Australia campaign and the party’s candidates received over 600,000 votes in the lower house and over half a million in the Senate. That resulted in the party getting one seat in the senate held by Victorian senator Ralph Babet.
Today Palmer said the $120 million price tag had been worth it to send Senator Babet to Canberra.
“It’s a good investment to free this country from the waste and corruption that is occupying the public service and the government, from the lobbyists who are in this house every day to see members of parliament. I’ve been here, I’ve met them, I’ve heard what they’ve wanted to say and that’s not the way you should govern a country.
“So I’m more than happy to spend my funds defending the right of free speech, and whatever is required to be spent will be spent.” he said.
Radio host Chris Smith was one of the first to highlight the the result of Palmer’s new foray into politics might be bad news for Opposition leader Peter Dutton.
“Who’s to say that Clive Palmer won’t rip the heart out of the conservative vote and steal numerous seats at this election?”, Smith said on radio station 2SM.
“This could remove the possibility of a coalition-led minority government led by Peter Dutton as conservative voters are compelled to follow a rogue party aimed at replicating the Trump philosophy.”
Senator Babet has had a different take, calling on all the smaller parties to unite under the Trumpt of Patriots banner.
“There are too many small parties splitting the vote and it’s only helping the establishment. If we truly want change, we must unite, the Trumpet of Patriots is the only one with the resources to compete, they have the funding to run a serious campaign and actually win.” Senator Babet posted to social media.
“If you refuse to work with the Trumpet of Patriots, it’s not about the people – it’s about your ego.” Senator Babet added.
This morning Palmer acknowledged that he’d attempted to form alliance with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation but nothing had eventuated.
The party’s website features a Lion with not a trumpet, but a cow-horn bugle in it’s mouth. It also has the motto ‘Honour Above All” in English, while a Latin translation would actually be “Honor Super Omnia”, they’ve gone with the shorter “honor omnia” which actually means “Honour Everything”.
At the media launch Palmer appeared to have a Freudian moment when he reportedly referred to party as “Parrots of Trump” rather the Trumpet of Patriots.
This morning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Senator Babet as someone who sits in the corner and engages in conspiracy theories.
‘A bloke who spends over $100million to deliver one senate seat with a bloke who sits in the corner and just engages in conspiracy theories I don’t think represents value for money,’ the Mr Albanese said.
‘People are entitled to run but it’s a distortion of democracy when you have someone spending $100million on a campaign right around the country.” he said.
The PM said Labor were the only party putting serious policies forward at the next election.
“If you are a serious political party the you have you’ve got to have serious policies.” the PM said.” At the moment, there’s only one serious political party at the moment in Australia.”
