United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly hopes candidates in the Hunter region play a role in delivering the minor party the balance of power in the House of Representatives when voters go to the polls later this month.
Mr Kelly, the federal leader of the party founded by Queensland resources billionaire Clive Palmer, was in Newcastle on Tuesday to meet with UAP candidates for Newcastle (Amanda Cook), Shortland (Kenneth Maxwell), Paterson (Jason Olbourne) and Hunter (Geoff Passfield).
He was promoting some of the party's flagship policies, which include giving people a 20 per cent tax discount for moving more than 200km from a capital city; taking control of interest rates from the Reserve Bank for five years in order to put in place a 3 per cent cap; and putting environmental concerns on the back-burner in favour of what is best for existing jobs in regions like the Hunter.
When the Newcastle Herald asked how UAP planned to pay for a 20 per cent tax discount for people who move to regional areas, Mr Kelly pointed to one of the party's other policies - putting a 15 per cent export license fee on iron ore for the next 15 to 20 years.
Mr Kelly said his party planned for the license fee to also help pay down national debt.
When asked how the party came up with the 15 per cent figure for the proposed license fee, Mr Kelly said "we thought 10 per cent was a bit light, 20 per cent was a bit high".
"You couldn't do it with any other commodity [aside from iron ore]," he told the Herald.
"We have such dominance in that market, we should be acting ruthlessly in our own best interests."
The UAP is running candidates in every seat in the lower house at the forthcoming election.
