THE United Australia Party is poised to overtake the Liberals as the nation’s leading centre-Right political organisation as membership surges under new leader Craig Kelly.
Tens of thousands of disgruntled centre-Right voters have responded to an aggressive growth drive by a well-funded UAP – fed-up with the Liberal Party’s relentless chase for Greens’ votes.
- UAP’s stellar growth an indication people aren’t happy with major Parties.
- Ex-Liberal Craig Kelly credited with membership success.
- Liberals accused of being in coalition with Labor Party.
UAP founder and chairman Clive Palmer – who appears to have found his political feet after a run of misfires – has credited the ex-Liberal MP for the UAP’s meteoric growth.
“Craig Kelly has been the primary person responsible for 46,000 Australians joining our Party,” Mr Palmer said at a press conference this week.
LARGEST
“It’s pretty clear that in the next month we’ll have the largest membership of any political Party in Australia.
“Certainly in my 50 year experience in politics as a former director of the National and Liberal Parties, I’ve never seen or experienced so many people join a Party so quickly.”
Mr Palmer said the most people who had joined the Queensland division of the LNP was 685 in one day.
“When Craig Kelly announced he was our leader in the United Australia Party our membership went up by 5000 people within 24 hours.
“That’s an indication that people in Australia are not happy. They’re not happy with their politicians, they’re not happy with what they are doing.”
Mr Palmer said the UAP would be running candidates in all 151 federal parliamentary electorates as well as the Australian senate.
COALITION
“There is a great coalition in this country at the moment between the Liberal and Labor Parties.
“They represent the real coalition to deny people a choice at election time.
“We’re targeting those seats and we expect to be very successful.
“Our initial polling indicates that, the overwhelming public support in membership indicates that and we’ll be moving on in the next two or three weeks to make a number of serious policy announcements.
“We have to think about how we are going to get the economy moving and how we are going to bring Australia back to where it should be to full employment and freedom across our borders.”
The rise of the UAP is occurring as the Liberal Party hemorrhages support and members.
More than two million voters have abandoned the Party across Australia since 2013 and members are fleeing in disgust as it embraces totalitarian lockdown policies, Greens’ environmental policies and Leftist social policies.
As recently as July the Party’s Federal Vice-President Teena McQueen said she could no longer defend the Party after being “inundated” by members desperate to leave.
“The Liberal Party is in big trouble, the members are angry… This is like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before,” she told Sky News anchor Alan Jones at the time.PC
There has to be more Craig Kelly like candidates to make this work. Ones with some political experience and capability. Clive Palmer has neither and I don’t trust the man. We’ve had political parties other than the main ones before, the DLP, the Democrats, the PUP and the Australian Conservatives and look where they ended up. I am a great fan of Craig I wish he was a minister in the LNP but all he got was abuse. I am tempted to join but in name only not financially as Clive has very deep pockets. Just look at the last election, $60,000,000 spent and NOT one candidate got up.
“Ones with some political experience and capability […]”
(a) “Political experience” is an oxymoron.
(b) “Political” and “capability” are mutually exclusive.
Craig Kelly will be, and is, a very dangerous adversary to the Liberal Party. His seat is exceptionally vulnerable and will probably end up in the hands of the Labor Party, even though his credentials are very conservative, but even if the Liberals are his second preference, a lot of these preferences will not necessarily end up going to the Liberal candidate in the end as a lot of people in his electorate do not appreciate how Scott Morrison treated him at Parliament House. Admonishing someone in front of his peers in Parliament house is a sure way to make an enemy. This was a bad lack of judgment by Scott. Never admonish someone in public do it privately. “ you catch more flies with honey than manure”
His advertisements of late are having a lot of traction and a current membership which he claims of 60,000 individuals is nothing to sneeze at and something which should really worry the Liberals and Scott Morrison. He is far more effective than Turnbull ever was in changing public opinion.
The Liberals and National’s have become a pathetic bunch of corporate cronies that continue to corrupt policy and this country. I’ve seen enough now to realise none of the bigger parties are interested in making this country the best country in the world. They have ruined everything we hold dear. Democracy, freedom, trust, small business, coal, it’s the Australian way that has left politics because they’re all too self interested. I’m done with all of them. I know that if Tony Abbott was in charge none of this would be happening right now. I’m ashamed of the Liberal party. They will never get my vote again.
Interesting the degree of disillusionment with major parties ! This may produce another 2010 election result! The viltptit for all of this is Turnbull and his acolytes!
All I can say is God help Australia if Craig Kelly and Clive Palmer were to run the joint! Those UAP ads on Sky drive me to distraction.
UAP is the only Conservative party we have in this country. You may not like the adds but it’s their policy that really counts. Freedom of choice, get out of Paris Agreement and the UN. Dismantle all the greens policy. They are going to get massive votes nation wide and it’s to the detriment of the liberal/nationals and labor. They will be lucky to win a senate seat the way things are looking.
But this happens time and time again. The conservative vote is fragmented as the easily lead flock to the standard of the latest messiah. Ask yourself a question, how did the Left come to dominate the Liberals? Answer, they got the numbers. So if you are a conservative and want to regain control of one of the two leading political brand names in Australia, you have to join the Libs, LNP or Nationals. And persuade your friends to join so you build the numbers in your branch. Stroking Clive Palmers ego won’t get you a result you enjoy.
I didn’t realise that Craig Kelly was positioned anywhere near the centre.
Oh – PULL THE OTHER LEG!
Leaders and Ministers in the Liberal Party please take note. Time to learn left from right, wrong from right.
Too little too late 🙂
Thank you for an informative article. I had no idea the UAP was doing so well. I am not surprised. I shall never countenance any political party containing the word ‘liberal’ again.
Keep up the great work Craig Kelly MHR
I like Kelly; he’s got guts and Australia’s best interests at heart; he’s been good on the China virus issues. He’s not anti-vax but pro-treatment, particularly Hydroxy and Ivermectin, which have been subject to lies by big pharma and government stooges.
But I really want Kelly to go to town on alarmism, ie global warming, which is an even bigger threat to not just the Australian economy but Australian society as well. We already have Prince Charles and that German idiot bleating about the great reset where you’ll own nothing and be happy about it and the renewable scam is under-mining Australia’s great asset: cheap and abundant fossils, gas and nuclear plus Thorium which we don’t use ourselves but export to our competitors like China which is going gangbusters building new coal, nuclear and Thorium reactors.
And what is our government doing: going down the dead end of hydrogen which Bjelke-Peterson was rabbiting on about in the 1980s. Just bloody nuts. Kelly has to be all over this. Plus their candidate selection has to be spot on; we don’t want any nutters in the ranks who start on about Lizard people and such ratbaggery.
‘we don’t want any nutters in the ranks’
The UAP is Clive Palmer’s baby. Can you imagine its policies being decided by anyone other than Palmer? Who are the party hierarchy, apart from Palmer? It’s reminiscent of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the UK. This had no members, but ‘registered supporters’. If you want to be a political serf in an entity owned and controlled by a self-proclaimed billionaire, you are of course free to do so. But don’t complain when you wake up realising your voice is never heard at all.
You know what I thought the same but I’m guessing the party bad boys did to him what they did to Pauline Hanson and same with the media. He is the only one putting his wealth into this party rather than donations from corporate elites that lobby for policy with Aldi bags. He has Craig Kelly at the helm, one of the only mps willing to fight for our freedoms whilst the media call him an anti vaxxer. He is willing to stand up to the cronies in politics and I will vote for him at the next election after dumping the Libersl party after 35 years of voting for them.
Anyone silly enough to go on to a British TV programme run by Piers Morgan is not equipped to run for political office in Australia, let alone head a successful political party.
Or you can continue being the Emu, head stuck in the sand! While this nation becomes another illegal pawn in the UN’s fold 🙁
Craig Kelly and the UAP is Australia’s best hope of becoming a free and prosperous nation once again.