Billionaire Clive Palmer is spending serious money on mainstream media to promote his new party, Trumpet of Patriots, in the lead-up to the next election.
And many media outlets are more than happy to accept it (Women’s Agenda is not).
The ads are offensive and hurtful. They’re mind-bogglingly stupid and boring. They share false information in a bid to attract outrage.
And they’re currently blasted all over the mainstream press: on commercial television, in major newspapers and online. The Age, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The West Australian and the Daily Telegraph are just some of the masthead accepting the front page ads, with 14 appearing over the past week, according to Mumbrella. The ads are also all over YouTube and social media.
Palmer plans to spend more on advertising than the record $100 million he spent at the 2022 Federal election, when he garnered 4.7 per cent of the primary vote and one very expensive senator.
So, what does that say about media enabling their platforms to bombard their audiences with divisive and hurtful messaging on commercial television and across their visible front pages?
What does that say about the fact many of these same publications promoting such ads have previously run their own campaigns pushing social cohesion and the need for teenagers to be restricted from accessing social media?
The Palmer ads are pushing basic populist (and completely baseless) lies about diverse communities, along with claims such as “too much immigration destroys infrastructure” and last week’s message that, “We don’t need to be welcomed to our own country.”
Wednesday’s example on The Age’s front page featured a bright yellow strip across the front page proclaiming, “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS—MALE AND FEMALE.” More shocking was that it appeared directly below a front-page story titled “Pamer spends big on divisive ads,” sharing quotes from transgender advocacy groups on the harm being caused.
Indeed, Transgender Victoria is quoted as describing Pamer’s ads, which had earlier appeared in The Australian, as “dangerous and hateful”.
CEO Son Vivienne told The Age that Trumpet of Patriots should “retract this campaign and apologise—or acknowledge they will have our blood on their hands.”
Last year, the Coroners’ Court of Victoria handed down recommendations to improve suicide prevention and postvention services for gender-diverse people, including ensuring the needs of this community can be met.
Imagine the good that could be achieved with a philanthropic approach to Palmer’s $100 million spend, donated to not-for-profits, especially those that serve some of the community’s most vulnerable people. Instead, some such NFPs will see their workloads increase.
Meanwhile, ads are being pumped across television, with the latest version featuring an endorsement from Tucker Carlson declaring Australians can trust a man like Palmer. “People say, you know he’s a billionaire, he can say whatever he wants. Really? Then why aren’t other billionaires saying whatever they want?”
Carlson missed the memo about Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, not being shy about declaring this country needs more Trump-like policies.
Staff at The Age have protested in response to the latest Palmer ads, according to The Guardian, with a number of journalists sharing a formal letter to management. But today The Age has defended its decision to publish the campaign, declaring that rejecting it could imply that they endorse the content of the ads they do accept.
Proving that regrets for running such ads are possible, The Newcastle Herald apologised for doing so on Tuesday and removed them from its digital edition. Publisher ACM declared that they “offended many of our readers and did not meet our values as a company. It should not have appeared.”
Palmer told the National Press Club today that the “Trumpet of Patriots” has 20,000 members across Australia, with “thousands of people” joining every day “because they’ve had enough of the boring politicians that don’t answer questions.”
“They’ve had enough of their children being harassed at schools, and they want change.”
The Trumpet of Patriots is planning to field candidates in all 150 seats across the country. For those thinking about being one of them, consider this: “earned media” (editorial) is much harder to retract than paid advertising. We’ve had numerous requests from women urging us to remove their names as being associated with Palmer’s previous political party, from our Women Elect: 2022 Federal Election Tracker.