WHAT do you get for $60 million?
The short answer seems to be very little.
Now that the Federal Election is done and dusted it is interesting to look at the cost of advertising in order to see what spending big bucks achieved.
Clive Palmer’s new political plaything, the Trumpet of Patriots party, is reported to have spent some $60 million on advertising for the Federal Election campaign, of which around $24 million was spent on television advertising.
His party failed to get one candidate elected from over 100 candidates standing under their banner, achieving less than two percent of the primary vote.
With just under 250,000 first preference votes obtained, the result was similar to that achieved by the Family First party and the Legalise Cannabis Australia Party – I didn’t notice any advertising at all from those two groups.
Whilst Clive Palmer is recognised as being amongst the ten wealthiest people in Australia, his forays into politics are intriguing at best.
This latest attempt must have him wondering what $60 million expenditure can achieve politically in our country.
I make no claims about being an expert on advertising, but his TV grabs contained short, sharp and easy to understand policies that were delivered by an attractive personality in Suellen Wrightson, who was one of the candidates standing for the nearby seat of Hunter.
Even with all the TV exposure she gained just 3.6 percent of the first preference votes for that electorate.
In the 2022 Federal Election, under the banner of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, it is reported that Mr Palmer spent $123 million.
That campaign did however result in one senate seat being won.
It is also interesting to compare the Trumpet of Patriots’ TV advertising expenditure to the other parties.
According to an analysis by Adgile, the ALP spent a whopping $24 million on TV ads, while the Coalition spent $20.7 million.
The Greens and other parties spent around $4 million.
Of course, this pales into insignificance when we compare it to the cost of USA presidential elections campaigns.
Many say that what is happening in Trump’s America at the present time had a direct effect on the outcome of our Federal Election in both a positive and negative way, depending on which party is telling that tale to its electors.
By John BLACKBOURN
