NATIONALS leader Barnaby Joyce says the Palmer United Party (PUP) took off like a “real firecracker” but an implosion was inevitable for the short-lived and now to be deregistered federal political party.
PUP Chair Clive Palmer announced yesterday his party intended to cancel its registration with the Australian Electoral Commission, given the current political conditions were different from 2013 when it was initially formed to oppose the carbon and mining taxes.
PUP had three Senators elected at the 2013 federal poll but two split shortly afterwards following personal fall-outs with Mr Palmer, while WA PUP Senator Dio Wang remained faithful but was unsuccessful at being returned at last year’s election.
Glenn Lazarus also failed to win back his Senate seat as an independent in Queensland while only Jacquie Lambie was returned in Tasmania under her new self-titled political brand.
Mr Palmer was also elected to the Lower House for the Queensland seat of Fairfax in 2013 but only lasted one term and also announced yesterday he’d personally retired from politics.
At the 2013 federal election PUP captured over 5 per cent of the national vote and shared the balance of power in the Senate after an unprecedented multi-million dollar advertising spending spree that saturated media in backing a swag of candidates, leading up to polling day, including a strong focus on rural areas.
“I would like to thank the members and thousands of Australians in every state of the Commonwealth who have supported the party and its candidates during the last four years,’’ Mr Palmer said.
But Mr Joyce said “Gee whiz I mean that was a real firecracker wasn’t it?”, when asked about the PUP’s deregistration plans.
“It took off, it went up, it exploded and little bits and pieces have fallen back to the ground,” he said.
“It was inevitable that the Palmer Party was going to implode.
“The National Party - we were around a long time before the Palmer United Party, a long before (Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party) and long before the Liberal Party and we’ll be around in the future.
“We’ll just continue to do our job and the other iterations will come and go.”
The Nick Xenophon Team had three Senators elected at last year’s federal poll and One Nation had four in what’s now an expanded Upper House cross-bench challenging the Coalition’s control over the flow of legislation, along with the Greens.
The Nationals increased their federal representation by one Lower House MP, following Damian Drum’s election in rural Victoria while the Liberals took a thumping to Labor in key seats, as the Coalition’s majority slipped to just one seat, in the House of Representatives.
Asked if the Greens or One Nation were now a bigger threat to the junior Coalition partner’s future in the PUP’s absence, Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash said she was “very much” focussed on opportunities, not threats.
“One Nation, of course, is out there in our communities and they are talking about the things that are important to them, as are the Greens,” she said in response to media questions after her National Press Club address yesterday.
“I look at opportunities.
“I look at the people out in regional Australia and think ‘How are they best served?’ and my absolutely rock solid view is they are best served by the National Party and the Liberal Party in Coalition.
“I will be continuing to prosecute the case for what we have delivered for them.”
Senator Nash said she’d continue her Regional Development portfolio work around the Building Better Regions Fund, health and education outcomes and “making sure that we have got that investment in those communities”.
“I'm very much focused with my leader Barnaby Joyce and our team on getting out there and delivering for those people in the regions who need us to deliver for them and we will continue to do that,” she said.
“Our job is to go around the country, be out there on the ground, in the streets, on the high streets, in the farmers' kitchens talking about the things that we want to do to improve their future.
“The thing is under Barnaby we have got to 22 (members of parliament) and five members in cabinet so we're at a pretty high mark but it doesn't mean we can't go further.”
In 2014, Mr Palmer spoke on a political panel at the National Farmers' Federation’s bi-annual congress in Canberra saying the peak farm lobby group needed to start “shirtfronting” the federal government to squeeze a better deal for farmers out of free trade agreements.
At last year’s election PUP gained only 0.0475 of the quota in the WA Senate vote compared to One Nation on 0.5236 in winning one Senator’s spot while the Nationals won 0.3294 of the quota.
In Queensland for the Senate election PUP gained 0.0230 of the state’s quota, compared to One Nation on 1.1941 having two Senators elected and the LNP on 5.5851 while Mr Lazarus returned 0.2155 of the quota.
In June 2014, Mr Palmer shocked the nation and Canberra press gallery journalists when he made a bizarre media announcement about his party’s planned amendments to legislation to repeal the carbon tax, standing alongside former US Vice President and climate change advocate Al Gore, at Parliament House.
Mr Palmer and Mr Gore both made brief statements to media but did not take any questions as they left for an “urgent” dinner meeting.