Clive Palmer spent about $245 per first preference vote in Trumpet of Patriot's failed election run
Clive Palmer spent about $245 per first preference vote received by the Trumpet of Patriots - with the fringe party failing to pick up a lower house seat despite the billionaire's $60m cash splash.
The most recent figures from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) reveal Trumpet of Patriots won a total of 244,095 first preference votes.
This was about 1.85 per cent of total first preference votes.
Mr Palmer told The Daily Telegraph he spent about $60m on the campaign with Agdile Media Group estimating Mr Palmer dedicated about $24.1m on television, YouTube, and on-demand platforms.
On Sunday he said the 2025 election campaign would be his last political hurrah, telling the publication that 'I'm 71 and I'm getting too old for politics'.
'I'd rather spend time helping the tens of thousands that are homeless and hungry in this country … that's why I've donated $5m to Foodbank.'
Trumpet's star candidate gets … 3458 votes
Following Saturday night's count, Trumpet of Patriot's star candidate and party leader Suellen Wrightson won just 3458 first-preference votes, 3.44 per cent, in her NSW Central Coast seat of Hunter.
While she attempted to unseat popular Labor MP and former Olympic shooter Dan Repacholi, the current count has revealed a 5.4 per cent swing to Labor.
Despite being described as 'Australia's next Prime Minister' during the campaign, Ms Wrightson received the fourth lowest amount of votes out of the nine-person ballot.
In comparison, One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds received 16,405 votes, or about 16.33 per cent of the vote.
Following the campaign, Ms Wrightson has also locked her social media channels, including her Facebook and X pages.
Voters revolt over Trumpet's text blast
The Trumpet of Patriots party has courted controversy since Mr Palmer announced he would be backing the Trump-aligned outfit, voters revolted after they were blanketed with a barrage of unsolicited texts urging them to vote for the party.
The text messages contained outlines of the party's key policies, including 'solve housing fast trains 20 Min CBD cheaper land (sic)', 'cut immigration by 80 per cent', and 'double fees for foreign students', plus a link to the Trumpet of Patriots' website.
It's Queensland senate candidate Harry Fong became public enemy number one after his name 'H Fong' was used in the authorisation sign-off on the texts.
Although the tactic is legal and within the AEC guidelines, enraged internet sleuths found Mr Fong's contact details and began hounding him with texts.
During the campaign, Anthony Albanese also said that while he would personally support banning political parties from sending unsolicited election texts, he conceded it could be unconstitutional.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
39 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Germany's Merz survives Trump test, despite Ukraine differences
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came through his Oval Office encounter with Donald Trump relatively unscathed Thursday -- despite differences over Ukraine as the US president said it might be better to let Moscow and Kyiv fight it out like children. A month into his job, Merz unleashed a charm offensive on the 78-year-old Trump, presenting him with a framed copy of the birth certificate of his grandfather Frederick, who was born in Germany in 1869. Merz also hailed Trump as being the "key person in the world" when it came to ending the Ukraine war, saying the US leader could "really do that now by putting pressure on Russia." It was a backhanded way of urging Trump to overcome his aversion to putting sanctions on Russia over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as the more than three-year-old war grinds on. The polite meeting showed that the conservative German leader had done his homework as he sought to avoid ambushes like those that Trump unleashed on Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's president. But they did not see eye to eye on everything. - 'Fighting in a park' - Trump -- who spoke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin a day earlier -- said it might be better to let the two sides fight it out, comparing the war that has left thousands dead and swathes of Ukraine in ruins to a children's brawl. "Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they're fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart," Trump told reporters. "Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while." Trump said however that he had urged Putin not to retaliate after Ukraine launched daring drone attacks on its airbases, destroying several nuclear capable bombers. "I said 'don't do it,'" Trump told reporters, adding that Putin had told him he had no choice but to respond and it was "not going to be pretty." Trump did make a series of off-color references to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II -- still a deeply sensitive subject in modern-day Germany. Praising Merz for Germany raising its defense spending in line with his demands for NATO members to cough up, Trump said he was not sure World War II US general Douglas MacArthur would have agreed. Then, referring to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings that led to the end of the war, Trump said: "That was not a pleasant day for you?" Merz, 69, calmly replied: "This was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship. We know what we owe you." - Tariffs deal possible - Merz avoided other possible pitfalls as Trump spent much of his time on a lengthy discourse against his billionaire former advisor Elon Musk. Topics like US tariffs on the EU and the prospect of a trade deal barely came up, with Trump saying he believed a deal was possible. On Trump's threat to hammer the European Union with sharply higher tariffs, Merz, leader of the bloc's biggest economy, had earlier argued that it must be self-confident in its negotiations with Washington. Nor did Trump confront Merz over free speech issues in Germany as US media had reported he might -- a bugbear the administration has repeatedly brought up with European leaders despite its own record. Merz told reporters in Washington ahead of the meeting that if Trump brought up German domestic politics "I will state my opinion very clearly if necessary." Trump and some in his administration have given vocal support to the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came second in February elections. US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Trump adviser Elon Musk have all weighed in in support of the AfD, which in Germany is shunned by all other political parties. Despite the tensions, Merz had said earlier that he was "looking forward" to his first face-to-face meeting with Trump. The German chancellor is believed to have studied videos of previous Oval Office ambushes and learned how to stay calm and let Trump talk.
West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
Trump 'disappointed' by Musk criticism of tax-cut bill
US President Donald Trump says he is "disappointed" by Elon Musk's public opposition to the sweeping tax-cut and spending bill that is at the heart of Trump's agenda. "Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump said in the Oval Office. "He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I'm, I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot." Trump also asserted that Musk's days of blistering attacks on the bill were motivated by the proposed elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles. Musk, the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, has said he opposes the bill because it will increase federal deficits. Trump suggested that Musk, who received a praise-filled send-off from Trump last week after overseeing his federal bureaucracy cost-cutting campaign, was upset because he missed working for Trump. "He's not the first," Trump said. "People leave my administration ... then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile." As Trump was speaking, Musk wrote on X, "Slim Beautiful Bill for the win," a reference to the bill's official title, the "Big Beautiful Bill Act". Musk followed that up with another post, saying he was fine with the cuts to electric vehicle credits as long as Republicans removed what he called a "mountain of disgusting pork" in wasteful spending from the bill. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," the billionaire said in a subsequent post. Musk came into the government with brash plans to cut $US2 trillion ($A3.1 trillion) out of the federal budget. He left last week having achieved far less than that, having cut about half of one per cent of total spending. Musk has been a powerful Trump ally, spending about $US250 million to boost Republicans in the 2024 election and then overseeing Trump's Department of Government Efficiency. His work eliminating thousands of federal jobs and cutting billions of dollars in foreign aid and other programs caused disruption across federal agencies while prompting widespread protests at Tesla outlets in the US and Europe. Shares of Tesla extended losses after Trump's criticism of Musk, falling more than eight per cent on a day otherwise devoid of news for the electric car maker. with AP
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Bromance over: tensions between Trump and Musk erupt into open warfare
Washington: Tensions between Donald Trump and his former 'first buddy' Elon Musk have erupted into open warfare, with the US president suggesting Musk has a version of 'Trump derangement syndrome', and the world's richest man insisting he won the election for Trump. The friendship has crumbled swiftly since Musk officially left his White House post on Friday and proceeded to unleash a campaign against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which extends Trump's first-term tax cuts and raises the US debt ceiling by trillions. The breakdown in the relationship, while predicted by some from the outset, is significant because of the Tesla chief's continued reach and influence and his clear desire to tank Trump's top domestic priority. 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday (Friday AEST). 'He was here for a long time. You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval [Office] desk ... He said wonderful things about me. He's worn the hat, 'Trump was right about everything'. And I am right about the great big beautiful bill.' Trump said he was surprised by Musk's barrage of criticism, but asserted the Tesla chief was upset because the bill cuts a Biden-era electric vehicle mandate which was a boon for his business. 'All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed a problem when he found out we were going to have to cut the EV mandate,' Trump said. 'I can understand that, but he knew every aspect of this bill, he knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left.
