Clive Palmer’s massive anti-woke ad blitz divides media
Clive Palmer has vowed to spend north of $100 million in the lead up to the federal election, with a series of anti-woke and right-wing ads published across major mastheads over the past week.
The Age, The Australian, Daily Telegraph, The West Australian, and the Sydney Morning Herald are among the major mastheads running front-page advertisements with Palmer’s signature yellow, and a series of rotating slogans. Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots party has booked 14 front-page advertisements over the past week, with the messaging staggered across different days and markets. TV and radio ads featuring party leader Suellen Wrightson have been on heavy rotation in marginal seats.
The ads have prompted protests from some editorial staff and interest groups, with The Newcastle Herald pulling the ad from its online news and apologising to readers.
The projected spend for the 2025 campaign is expected to surpass the $100 million Palmer spent during his 2022 run.
An advertisement featuring the slogan “We don’t need to be welcomed to our own country” has appeared on the front page of The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the AFR Weekend, all owned by Nine Entertainment, as well as across News Corp publications The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail, and The Advertiser.
The West Australian, owned by Seven West Media, ran a front-page ad declaring “Too much immigration destroys infrastructure”, while Wednesday morning’s The Age featured an ad which read: “There are only two genders – male and female”. Smaller text read: “We must stop confusing children in schools. Give them a safe and normal environment to grow and develop in and let them decide who they are when they become adults.”
The latter ad ran on the front of the Tuesday morning edition of The Newcastle Herald. After editorial staff protested, saying in a letter the ad was “an insult to the work that we do”, the paper’s management pulled the ad online and apologised.
The advertisement, before it was pulled.
The ACM-owned masthead’s apology said the advertisement “offended many of our readers and did not meet our values as a company. It should not have appeared.”
It said that ACM has “checks in place for political advertising but on this occasion the process failed and the advertisement was not reviewed before publication.”
“We support freedom of speech and a diversity of views, but on this occasion we let our readers and our staff down. ACM and the Herald apologise unreservedly to our readers, the transgender community and to the Newcastle community more broadly for any hurt and distress caused by the publication of the advertisement.”
Staffers from The Age, owned by Nine Entertainment, also wrote a protest letter. A spokesperson from Nine confirmed it had not pulled any of the advertisements, telling Mumbrella: “Political advertising must adhere to all relevant laws, codes and regulations. Nine does not align itself to any political party or messaging.”
The campaign will be significant contributor to bottom lines. During its earnings call last month, acting CEO Matt Stanton credited the company’s strong financial start to 2025 to the Australian Open broadcast, the continued success of Married At First Sight – and Clive Palmer’s decision to mount a political campaign.
Mumbrella has reached out to the Newcastle Herald and the Trumpet of Patriots office for further clarification and comment.
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Trumpet of Patriots. How this man became so rich amazes me. Clive cannot read a room.
Isn’t ACM’s core market conservative regional farmers?
Surely it was a succesful campaign for them (that they profited from)?
Sounds like virtue signalling / a hurried cleanup after the fact.
Get the Head Of Sales to hand back any commission from the CP campaign and we will see how their values stack up.
Last federal election, $100M got Clive one senate seat…..bet no one knows his name.
Ralph Babet, a real mover & shaker in Canberra.
The now renamed UAP, Trumpet of Patriots, tho bound to be a nutter magnet, I predict Ralph will remain the lonely UAP/TOP singleton in the Senate no matter how much Clive splashes.
He might not win a single seat but
the damage he is doing to at risk people is real
the transphobia he is fueling is real
the lives that will be lost is real
the families that will be destroyed is real
the impact will be still around longer after the election is called.
The publishers and agencies involved in this campaign should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s the most truthful, honest and correct statement you will ever see printed in rubbish papers like Nine, Age, guardian, Sydney morning herald. The woke left are in denial.
What I find offencive is those who support the very people with too much time on their hands that believe there are more than 2 sexes. As for media organisations backing the backward left, how’s that going for them in USA? Broke. No viewers and destroyed reputations. Do they think same won’t happen here. Legacy media is dead.
Which agency is making these placements? I feel that prospective job hunters have the right to know.
Palmer is grotesque and the weak excuses from the various publishers are pathetic.
Anon, the last elections the media agency was Rapid Media billing through MediaCom Queensland. Assuming it would still be the same.
First time I’ve ever submitted my own complaint to the Ad Standards Board, knowing full well the harm will be done long before any decision takes affect. Cruely stomping on minorities who do you no harm whatsoever in your bid for self-promotion is cheap, small-minded cowardly and harmful to our wonderful country. Let’s not be the US – look how badly they are doing right now – and bringing everyone else down with them.
Money talks.