Billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has backed down on a previous denial that he spoke to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon during the 2019 federal election, but maintains he did not collude with the US alt-right figure on his disruptive $80 million advertising campaign.
Palmer, who told the ABC this week he had “never spoken to Bannon”, said on Wednesday he had, in fact, received a short phone call from the former White House adviser seven years ago, but the pair never spoke again.
The former MP, who made his millions in iron ore, thermal coal and hydrocarbon assets, said all planning and execution of the campaign, which was dominated by anti-China and anti-climate change messages, was carried out in close consultation with then-finance minister Mathias Cormann.
The admission comes after text messages released as part of the US Department of Justice’s revealed Bannon had boasted to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein on May 20, 2019 – two days after Labor’s shock election loss – that he “had Clive Palmer do the … ads”.
But Palmer told reporters at Parliament House that his only conversation with Bannon took place in the early hours of the morning, long after his United Australia Party’s ads were already on air.
“I got a call at three in the morning, half asleep, and woke up,” Palmer said. “He said ‘Hello, I’m Steve Bannon.’ I said … ‘OK, hello, Mr Bannon.’ He said, ‘You’re doing a great job in your campaign against the Chinese and Bill Shorten. I think it’s fantastic. If you need any help, give me a call.’ I said, ‘OK, thanks very much.’ ”
Palmer said the conversation, which lasted about 90 seconds, had no influence on what is still the nation’s most expensive political advertising campaign.
He said he told Bannon, “We can’t talk to people in the States. We can’t take donations from overseas,” to which Bannon has replied, “I don’t want to give a donation.”
“He said I’m just ringing to say you’re running a great campaign against the Chinese. Keep it up,” Palmer said.
The texts between Bannon and Epstein were part of a conversation about Bannon’s plan to disrupt global democracy, with the disgraced financier urging Bannon to pursue a broader populist project unconstrained by national borders.
The review into Labor’s election loss found Palmer’s prolific “Shifty Shorten” advertising campaign was widely credited with damaging Labor in Queensland and contributing to Morrison’s unexpected victory. It said his decision to directly back in the Coalition’s anti-Labor messages was “an unprecedented act of collusion between supposed political rivals”.
Asked why Bannon would have lied about their conversation, Palmer said: “I think politicians and people associated with politics lie regularly, and it’s a challenge for the media to work out the lies and the truth.”
He then said the only networking about the campaign was with the Liberals through his dealings with Cormann, who is now the secretary general of the Paris-based OECD.
When asked if he worked with Palmer to design his campaign advertising, Cormann said his only dealings with the mining magnate were to negotiate preferences with the UAP.
“[It] involved regular engagement with Clive – whom I had come to know in the course of Senate negotiations with the crossbench in the previous parliament,” he said. “As far as I am aware, his ads at the time were all his own work. I am not aware that he involved anyone else in that side of things.”
Palmer told journalists that the story was a beat-up and he could not understand why it had attracted so much media attention.
“You can’t stop people calling you in the middle of the night. You can’t stop answering your telephone. I mean, I answer my telephone for everyone.”
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten, now chancellor of Canberra University, said the whole matter confirmed the party’s suspicion there were darker forces at play during that election.
“The Bannon-Palmer-Cormann matter now raises more questions than it answers. Why would Steve Bannon lie to Jeffrey Epstein in an email about it? Someone is not telling the truth,” he said.
“It is clear Australians who thought they were voting for Palmer at the 2019 election were voting for something much murkier.”
Palmer’s United Australia Party failed to win a seat but secured 3.4 per cent of the national primary vote, with preferences flowing heavily to the Coalition. Palmer personally claimed credit for the Morrison government’s re-election, although political analysts say his party’s preferences only helped the Liberals directly retain one seat, Bass in Tasmania.
Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young described Bannon’s claims as an attack on Australia’s elections.
“Seriously, when is either the Labor or Liberal parties going to stand up to the right-wing US rot and defend Australia’s democracy,” she said.
Brendan Walker-Munro, an associate professor at Southern Cross University who has written on foreign interference, said even if it was accurate, he did not believe the alleged communication between Bannon and Palmer would fall foul of Australia’s foreign interference laws.
He said the laws are designed to address influence by foreign governments and political parties, meaning an unbroken chain would need to exist between any attempted influence by Bannon and the Trump administration.
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