Clive Palmer introduced a TV fishing show host and a former Greens candidate among the 19 people who will stand for the Palmer United party in the Victorian election.
PUP candidates will stand in all eight Victorian Legislative Council regions in the 29 November poll, with Palmer confidently predicting the party will be able to gain the balance of power in the upper house.
The candidates, four of whom are women, include Hans Paas, a former Greens candidate and former national secretary of the Democrats. Jason Kennedy, who hosts the Fishin’ Trip show, which has been screened on Seven and Foxtel, will also stand.
A lengthy event in Melbourne saw the candidates, with each man wearing a yellow tie, talk about their families, communities and the alleged failure of the Liberal and Labor parties.
However, there was no outline of the party’s policy platform. This will be released next week, just a fortnight before the state election.
Prodded over his policy positions for Victoria, Palmer said he was against the privatisation of assets such as the Melbourne port and wanted greater transparency over political donations from developers.
Asked if he wanted to see Victoria’s heavily polluting brown coal plants shut down, the businessman said Victorians “need to brace ourselves for this century” but would not give a clear position on the topic.
Palmer regaled the assembled Sunday afternoon audience with tales of him entering fishing competitions in Gippsland and childhood Christmases in Bairnsdale.
“I can remember a time when this state was the number one state in the economy, number one state in employment, number one state in wealth generation and number one state in ideology,” he said.
“We can get there again and that’s why we say hope is not dead, freedom is still alive and this state can achieve more than people think it can.”
Politicians from the two major parties “go out together at night and have picnics together”, according to Palmer, who predicted that Victorians will want the as-yet unspecified “new ideas” that his party will bring to the state.
Palmer also attempted to quash suggestions that PUP senator Jacqui Lambie had caused a damaging split in the party by refusing to back any legislation unless the government improved its pay offer to Australian Defence Force personnel.
“She can’t split the party. The party is bigger than that,” Palmer said. “We hold the balance of power in Australia and one senator doesn’t make much difference either there.
“She’s very emotional about [the pay offer] but we’ve got a responsibility to consider bills on their merit, and there are a lot of bills before parliament.”
The state leader of PUP and the party’s policies will be revealed at another Palmer event on 16 November.
