The announcement of Clive Palmer’s Senate tilt is bound to have a range of people sighing, giggling behind their hands, and making light of the United Australia Party’s chances at the next election.
There will also be reference to the fact that he spent tens of millions of dollars on a campaign in 2019 but got not much in return when it came to seats in Parliament.
All that money and not a seat to show for it? Of course, that assumes a seat in Parliament was the sole objective. A seat in Parliament might have been a fringe benefit but the Palmer campaign was heavily focused on the Labor opposition.
The Coalition won.
It poses an important question as we get closer to this year’s election. Should we really be looking more deeply at what is happening out in the electorate as far as parties like the UAP are concerned rather than opting for flippancy and taking the piss?
The 2019 election, on which Palmer spent a lot of money, was conducted without a pandemic as its backdrop, and the pandemic — along with other factors that have led to voter dissatisfaction with establishment parties — could well lead to outcomes that surprise those who have not been paying attention.
Kosmos Samaras, a former Australian Labor Party campaign director, runs RedBridge Group, a consulting practice that conducts polls and surveys looking at voter attitudes.
Samaras advises caution in assessing the contemporary political landscape because there are indications of changing attitudes. People who were previously voting for the two major parties are seriously considering putting their vote elsewhere and not simply treating it as a protest vote.
There is the real prospect, Samaras says, that people will move away from the Labor Party, the Liberal Party or the Greens because of the financial and social pain caused by the pandemic and accompanying measures, and that they will vote for a party such as the UAP.
What does this mean from the point of view of analysis of what is to come?
The first thing that must happen is that the motivations of people looking at parties such as the Palmer vehicle must be understood. Their voters could change the course of the next election and the nature of electoral demographics for years.
Mocking them for considering a vote for a minor party could confirm in their mind that the major political parties do not understand, or just disregard, their concerns, and are instead obsessed with playing political games.
There is equally a need to understand that blanket advertising works. Calling the ads silly or stupid and ridiculing them out of hand dismisses the power of advertising. Old hands at campaigning saw the 2019 campaign executed by Palmer as destroying Labor’s chances of victory.
Remember the advertisement that heralded Craig Kelly as the country’s next prime minister that ran last year? People ridiculed it. They retweeted it. They flicked it on to friends. And in doing so, they provided Palmer with the best possible return on investment. They could not help themselves. It got attention. Advertising works.
What will the UAP do in a state such as Victoria where unpopular restrictions have seen the growth of a protest movement that is a bit like a cottage industry churning out one rally after another? Some rallies have even been attended by Kelly, the parliamentary leader of the UAP, advocating a vote against the established parties that imposed various health measures such as masks and lockdowns.
Major political parties and some of the elected representatives have also hardly made themselves look good. Consider the various appearances before anti-corruption commissions and auditor-general reports into various infrastructure schemes that were used as a way of shovelling funds to electorate the Coalition wanted to hold or, alternatively, win from Labor.
It might be tempting to dismiss Palmer, Kelly and the UAP as being a joke but to do so may cause us to miss the whole point.
Those people considering a vote for parties like the UAP may be leaning that way because they’ve had a gutful of what they see as major parties letting them down.
Have you written off the UAP as a joke or do you think they may be on to something? And why? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
