Xenophon Just Grandstanding On Election Spending: Clive Palmer

Media release

Palmer United Party federal leader and newly elected Member for Fairfax. Clive Palmer, has dismissed South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon’s call for a parliamentary inquiry into the party’s election campaign spending as a “beat-up” and “grandstanding” .

Mr Palmer said Senator Xenophon was seeking to promote himself because he would soon be an irrelevant figure in the Senate with the Palmer United Party set to hold the balance of power from July 1, 2014.

“This is nothing more than grandstanding and a hopeless beat-up from Nick ‘No Friends’ Xenophon, who is becoming the lonely guy of federal politics and an inept irrelevance,” Mr Palmer said.

“The Palmer United Party spent far less on the election campaign than the major parties and probably about one fifth of what the Liberal Party spent and we were the only party to field candidates in every seat.

“Rupert Murdoch probably invested far more in editorial value supporting Prime Minister Tony Abbott during the election.

“By law, these election spending figures are irrelevant. The Australian Electoral Commission requires the Palmer United Party to lodge declarations on funding by October next year and these will be made public in 2015.

“I have been quite open about our spending on advertising during the campaign and was probably asked about it at almost every press conference.

“But it’s not a matter of how much you spend it’s about your ideas and policies and the Palmer United Party won the support of hundreds of thousands of Australians who have become tired of the two party duopoly.

“Everyone has the right to stand for parliament and to try to serve the community.

“It’s just a shame people like Wayne Swan turned Australian politics into a class issue.”

ENDS