Website: https://trumpetofpatriots.org/ 

 

Twitter: https://x.com/Trumpoline45 

 

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trumpetofpatriots/ 

 

(My review for the 2022 Federal Election of the UAP)

 

Look, I could go into a lot of detail about the history of this party (and back in January I was actually excitedly anticipating getting to discuss that yes, the name change from Australian Federation Party to Trumpet of Patriots was 100% a Trump reference), but there’s been approximately a thousand article since Clive Palmer essentially bought out the party and installed his omnipresent yellow branding everywhere. You already know this is the Clive Palmer Election Vehicle, after he fucked around and found out why there are rules to stop you deregistering your party after an election and reregistering it immediately before, just to evade AEC scrutiny. 

 

 

The policy platform here is a mix of Clive Palmer’s most disingenuous claims and a wholesale attempt at “let’s just copy Trump!”

 

So of course we have a DOGE policy, aimed at radically downsizing the federal government, and dogwhistle callouts of Australian Values, which mean “why doesn’t everyone assimilate into white Australian culture!” and calling out any differences as divisive. They hate the Aboriginal and Torres Islander flag and Welcome to Country ceremonies (which particularly enrage them), as the reminders that there are many existing cultures in Australia and have been since well before colonisation. 

 

TOP don’t like net zero: they think renewables are unreliable and expensive, but are all for nuclear and coal as cheap and friendly (and Clive Palmer’s financial stakes in mining such as Waratah Coal are completely irrelevant to this, of course). Also TOP want more minerals processing for manufacturing in Australia (and this is entirely unrelated to Mineralogy or Queensland Nickel at all).

 

They’re all for freedom of speech (as in the freedom to offend and insult others). There’s a lot of calling out of things being too ‘woke’: school education in particular is turning children against their parents.

 

Their housing policies are basically “stop immigration”, rather than actually doing anything for housing supply - they want a reduction of 80%. One of their angles to prevent immigration is actually a call to double university fees, so that international students vote with their feet and do not come. International fees are currently one of the main sources of income for Australian universities, and this would only lead to more job cuts and department shut downs in an already fragile sector that contributes a substantial amount of good. On top of this fun ‘raise prices so international students go elsewhere’ policy they also want free university education for Australian students. There is no explanation of where the funding of this might come from. 

 

They are anti-globalism (as barely hidden code for antisemitism), against the UN, the WHO and other international organisations, and want to be racist isolationists.

 

On top of this they’re still COVID cranks and cookers of the highest order, convinced that the government lied to them. 

 

But they do want to give me fast trains 20 minutes to the CBD. Now, personally for me the current Sydney Metro build will actually GIVE me those 20 minute fast trains to the CBD, but I can’t wait to see how TOP propose to implement them for say my mother, who lives in the Blue Mountains, or my friends who live down the South Coast. 

 

 

Given multiple of their policies seem intended to crush the Australian social welfare state, they just might. 

 

 

I think Suellen Wrightson’s assaults on all our eardrums with massively long ads are probably harming the patience of a large proportion of the country, as are Henry Fong’s authorised text messages.

 

 

Look. Clive Palmer has openly said interfering with elections via having a political party is one of his hobbies, alongside dreaming about building a second Titanic and having giant robot dinosaur parks, rather than playing golf. TOP as a party are absolutely obsessed with the sort of Trump ideology that is appearing wildly unpopular globally, if you look at recent polling trends in a whole range of countries (including Canada, New Zealand and yes here in Australia). Their one senator, Ralph Babet, has spent the last 3 years achieving less than nothing on the Senate crossbench and being most excited by reciting Trump slogans. Do not vote for this party.