Polls just a stab in the dark: Palmer

Media release

Federal leader of the Palmer United Party, Clive Palmer, said today that widely-publicised opinion polls which claimed to predict the outcome of the Federal election were flawed.

Mr Palmer said the polls could not possibly determine the outcome of the two-party preferred vote because many candidates had not even been selected yet by the major parties or by the Palmer United Party.

“It is meaningless to poll people’s voting intentions when their local candidates are not even chosen and even more pointless when the parties, including the Palmer United Party, have not indicated if or how they will direct preferences,” Mr Palmer said.

Mr Palmer said he understood that respondents were not being asked about whether they would vote for the Palmer United Party even though the party planned to stand candidates in all 150 House of Representative seats.

“This polling approach reflects the cosy assumptions of the two party system that has been in play in this country for generations but it does not reflect the new reality,” Mr Palmer said.

“Voters have a new choice about who should govern this country and we will only know how they respond when pollsters start asking the right questions at the right time instead of engaging in wild speculation.”
ENDS