{"id":454469,"date":"2026-02-02T22:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/454469\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:46:08","slug":"bill-shorten-questions-forces-at-play-after-steve-bannons-claim-he-helped-clive-palmer-damaging-labors-2019-election-chances-bill-shorten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/454469\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Shorten questions \u2018forces at play\u2019 after Steve Bannon\u2019s claim he helped Clive Palmer, damaging Labor\u2019s 2019 election chances | Bill Shorten"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former federal opposition leader Bill Shorten says he wants to know \u201cwhat forces were at play\u201d during the 2019 federal election, after Steve Bannon<\/a> purportedly claimed he was behind a $60m advertising strategy that damaged Labor\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

In text messages released by the US Department of Justice linked to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, Bannon, an American far-right political strategist, claimed he had influenced Australian billionaire Clive Palmer\u2019s advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had Clive Palmer<\/a> do the $60 million anti china and climate change ads,\u201d Bannon told an unidentified person, who appears to be Epstein, two days after the May 2019 federal election.<\/p>\n

The claim purportedly made by Bannon is untested and was dismissed as \u201cbullshit\u201d by Palmer\u2019s spokesperson on Sunday. Bannon has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

Palmer spent more than $60m on election advertisements for his United Australia Party, but later said he had pivoted his strategy in the final weeks of the campaign \u201cto polarise the electorate\u201d<\/a> and damage Labor\u2019s chances of winning.<\/p>\n

Shorten had been leading in published polls and was broadly expected to lead Labor to an election victory. The party\u2019s post-mortem came to the conclusion that the ads had \u201ca significant negative effect\u201d on Labor\u2019s primary vote and Shorten\u2019s standing in the electorate.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Shorten told Guardian Australia on Monday he considered Bannon\u2019s claims \u201ca badge of honour\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Churchill once said if you have enemies you\u2019ve stood up for something, some time in your life,\u201d Shorten said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked hard but didn\u2019t realise that our ambitious reform agenda resonated across the Pacific. If Steve Bannon wanted to stop Labor from winning government I must have been doing something right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shorten said he wanted to know what had occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn important principle is to know what forces were at play, and to protect our system in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> during the campaign \u2013 about a week before Palmer pivoted his advertising spend \u2013 Bannon described the campaign as dull, and that he was surprised at the lack of reference to China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be a really intense debate about this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are trying to hold the election on national security, and it should be tied to China. The insurgent parties should be generating the intensity, and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the campaign, Palmer ran a two-minute advertisement attacking Labor that made claims that \u201ccommunist China\u201d was attempting \u201ca clandestine takeover of our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s election review cited the \u201cbizarre\u201d claims in concluding that Palmer\u2019s advertising had \u201ca significant negative effect on [Labor leader] Bill Shorten\u2019s popularity and on Labor\u2019s primary vote\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing a preference deal with the Coalition, Clive Palmer dovetailed his $70 million advertising spend with the Liberal Party\u2019s in the final two weeks of the campaign, moving his attack to Bill Shorten as \u2018Shifty Shorten\u2019 and, in Western Australia, to a bizarre claim the McGowan Government sold an airport to China for $1.00,\u201d the election review said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalmer\u2019s advertising blitz strongly amplified the Coalition\u2019s anti-Labor message to economically insecure, low-income voters. In focus groups of soft voters, Palmer was described in the most derogatory terms, helping explain the poor vote he and his party received, but his blitz against Shorten took its toll on Shorten\u2019s leadership standing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s media spokesperson, Andrew Crook, responded to Bannon\u2019s purported claims of involvement via text message on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is made up. Just bullshit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former federal opposition leader Bill Shorten says he wants to know \u201cwhat forces were at play\u201d during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-454469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}