ALP’s secret Palmer talks for seat preference deal
A member of the ALP executive close to Bill Shorten held secret meetings with Clive Palmer as recently as last week in an attempt to broker a preference deal between Labor and the Queensland billionaire, amid fears the United Australia Party could swing key seats back to the Coalition.
The Australian confirmed from a source close to the meetings between the CFMEU and UAP that Michael O’Connor — the union’s national secretary and the brother of Labor’s Brendan O’Connor — flew to Brisbane on Wednesday last week to meet Mr Palmer along with another union official.
Source: The Australian
Yesterday, Shorten was quoted as saying:
‘If there have been conversations to find out what Mr Palmer is up to, well, that is as it is, but no deals from Labor’.
Source: MSN.com
The statement is a meaningless non-sequitur. An attempt to mislead.
“If the moon is made of green cheese, that is as it is”.
Palmer described Shorten’s remarks about paying the workers as ‘untrue and defamatory’:
Mr Palmer yesterday took aim at Mr Shorten for making ‘untrue and defamatory’ remarks after the Labor leader accused him of neglecting workers at his refinery. Mr Palmer said he was being attacked ‘merely because I have offered to serve the Australian people … We need to be positive in this country and it is not helpful to Australia if we continue to attack individuals merely because they offer themselves for public service’.