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Palmer admits he spoke to Trump strategist Bannon about 2019 campaign
Rob Harris - February 4, 2026
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Billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has backed down on a previous denial that he spoke to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon during the 2019 federal election, but maintains he did not collude with the US alt-right figure on his disruptive $80 million advertising campaign.
Palmer, who told the ABC this week he had “never spoken to Bannon”, said on Wednesday he had, in fact, received a short phone call from the former White House adviser seven years ago, but the pair never spoke again.
The former MP, who made his millions in iron ore, thermal coal and hydrocarbon assets, said all planning and execution of the campaign, which was dominated by anti-China and anti-climate change messages, was carried out in close consultation with then-finance minister Mathias Cormann.
The admission comes after text messages released as part of the US Department of Justice’s revealed Bannon had boasted to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein on May 20, 2019 – two days after Labor’s shock election loss – that he “had Clive Palmer do the … ads”.
But Palmer told reporters at Parliament House that his only conversation with Bannon took place in the early hours of the morning, long after his United Australia Party’s ads were already on air.
“I got a call at three in the morning, half asleep, and woke up,” Palmer said. “He said ‘Hello, I’m Steve Bannon.’ I said … ‘OK, hello, Mr Bannon.’ He said, ‘You’re doing a great job in your campaign against the Chinese and Bill Shorten. I think it’s fantastic. If you need any help, give me a call.’ I said, ‘OK, thanks very much.’ ”
Palmer said the conversation, which lasted about 90 seconds, had no influence on what is still the nation’s most expensive political advertising campaign.
He said he told Bannon, “We can’t talk to people in the States. We can’t take donations from overseas,” to which Bannon has replied, “I don’t want to give a donation.”
“He said I’m just ringing to say you’re running a great campaign against the Chinese. Keep it up,” Palmer said.
The texts between Bannon and Epstein were part of a conversation about Bannon’s plan to disrupt global democracy, with the disgraced financier urging Bannon to pursue a broader populist project unconstrained by national borders.
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The review into Labor’s election loss found Palmer’s prolific “Shifty Shorten” advertising campaign was widely credited with damaging Labor in Queensland and contributing to Morrison’s unexpected victory. It said his decision to directly back in the Coalition’s anti-Labor messages was “an unprecedented act of collusion between supposed political rivals”.
Asked why Bannon would have lied about their conversation, Palmer said: “I think politicians and people associated with politics lie regularly, and it’s a challenge for the media to work out the lies and the truth.”
He then said the only networking about the campaign was with the Liberals through his dealings with Cormann, who is now the secretary general of the Paris-based OECD.
When asked if he worked with Palmer to design his campaign advertising, Cormann said his only dealings with the mining magnate were to negotiate preferences with the UAP.
“[It] involved regular engagement with Clive – whom I had come to know in the course of Senate negotiations with the crossbench in the previous parliament,” he said. “As far as I am aware, his ads at the time were all his own work. I am not aware that he involved anyone else in that side of things.”
Palmer told journalists that the story was a beat-up and he could not understand why it had attracted so much media attention.
“You can’t stop people calling you in the middle of the night. You can’t stop answering your telephone. I mean, I answer my telephone for everyone.”
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten, now chancellor of Canberra University, said the whole matter confirmed the party’s suspicion there were darker forces at play during that election.
“The Bannon-Palmer-Cormann matter now raises more questions than it answers. Why would Steve Bannon lie to Jeffrey Epstein in an email about it? Someone is not telling the truth,” he said.
“It is clear Australians who thought they were voting for Palmer at the 2019 election were voting for something much murkier.”
Palmer’s United Australia Party failed to win a seat but secured 3.4 per cent of the national primary vote, with preferences flowing heavily to the Coalition. Palmer personally claimed credit for the Morrison government’s re-election, although political analysts say his party’s preferences only helped the Liberals directly retain one seat, Bass in Tasmania.
Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young described Bannon’s claims as an attack on Australia’s elections.
“Seriously, when is either the Labor or Liberal parties going to stand up to the right-wing US rot and defend Australia’s democracy,” she said.
Brendan Walker-Munro, an associate professor at Southern Cross University who has written on foreign interference, said even if it was accurate, he did not believe the alleged communication between Bannon and Palmer would fall foul of Australia’s foreign interference laws.
He said the laws are designed to address influence by foreign governments and political parties, meaning an unbroken chain would need to exist between any attempted influence by Bannon and the Trump administration.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/palmer-admits-he-spoke-to-trump-strategist-bannon-about-2019-campaign-20260204-p5nzju.html
Melbourne neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant jailed over Nazi salute outside court
Liam Beatty - February 4, 2026
Prominent Victorian neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant has become the first Australian to be jailed for performing a Nazi salute.
The 26-year-old performed the banned salute outside the Melbourne County Court on October 27, 2023, just days after laws banning the public display of Nazi symbols in Victoria came into effect.
In front of TV cameras, he threw his right arm in the air and stated; “heil Hitler” and “oh, nearly did it, it’s illegal now, isn’t it?”.
The salute came just minutes after he avoided jail for pleading guilty to a violent disorder charge relating to his involvement in a group attack on hikers in the Cathedral Range State Park in May 2021.
Hersant was the first person in Victoria to be convicted of performing the banned gesture and was sentenced to a month in jail in the Magistrates’ Court in November 2024.
But he was released and has remained on bail since then, after appealing both his conviction and sentence to the County Court.
In December last year, Judge Simon Moglia tossed out both of Hersant’s appeal grounds — that it wasn’t a Nazi salute and that laws banning the salute were unconstitutional — finding him guilty.
The judge found that while Hersant’s implied freedom of political communication had been “effectively burdened” by the laws because the salute was political in nature, the law was valid and imposed for a constitutionally legitimate purpose.
Hersant returned to the County Court on Wednesday afternoon for a plea hearing and sentencing.
His barrister, Tim Smartt, urged Judge Moglia to not sentence his client to jail, described in references to the court as a “wonderful father” to his three-year-old son.
Mr Smartt said Hersant retains the support of his parents, despite them both disagreeing with his political views.
“People are far better than their very worst deeds,” Mr Smartt said.
“(Hersant is a) far better person than the 10 minutes on that video.”
Mr Smartt argued Hersant had been “provoked” by the presence of the media outside court, but conceded the salute was done with a degree of hubris or arrogance after having received a lenient sentence.
The court was told there had been 18 cases across Australia for performing illegal Nazi salutes, with none resulting in a jail sentence.
Mr Smartt pointed to several of these; including outside a synagogue on the Gold Coast, outside a Jewish museum and in a Perth bar, that had resulted in sentences less than jail.
“It is by far the most severe sentence in Australia,” he said of Hersant’s sentence.
“You can’t jail your way into social cohesion, these people aren’t going to change their views on a sentence in this case.”
Daniel Gurvich KC, for the Crown, argued Hersant’s offending was done in a calculated fashion to achieve maximum impact and demonstrated “disdain for the law”.
Sentencing Hersant, Judge Moglia said the salute was performed with the full appreciation of it being unlawful and in the context of him having just been sentenced for a “most terrifying” and “violent” incident.
“I accept he relished that opportunity … with the full knowledge it was being done not simply in the presence of a few people but in the presence of the wider community in a realistic way,” the judge said.
Judge Moglia described the context as “contemptuous” and designed to send a “chilling message to the community”.
Hersant was sentenced to one month in jail and fined $1000 for breaching a community corrections order by performing the salute.
He has repeatedly described himself a Nazi and was a leading figure in the National Socialist Network until the neo-Nazi group claims to have disbanded last month to avoid the federal government’s new hate group legislation.
Hersant has flagged his intention to appeal the case to the High Court.
https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/melbourne-neonazi-jacob-hersant-jailed-over-nazi-salute-outside-court/news-story/3d3dc0cd06793995054f16ba8e65951d
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/neo-nazi-jacob-hersant-jailed-after-failed-salute-appeal-20260204-p5nzdq.html
Property manager Colin Milne charged with participating in satanic child abuse ring
An eastern suburbs property manager is the sixth man charged after a police probe into an alleged satanic child abuse ring, which has also unearthed 145 overseas offenders across four continents.
Eliza Barr and Elliott Stewart - February 4, 2026
The case of an eastern suburbs property manager accused of possessing a “horrific” trove of child sexual abuse videos has been described as among the worst an experienced magistrate has seen in 20 years.
The State Crime Command’s Child Exploitation Internet Unit established Strike Force Constantine to investigate online networks distributing satanic or ritualistic child sexual abuse material.
Dual Australian-English national Colin Milne, 62, was the sixth man charged following their probe into a Sydney-based group allegedly sharing the vile material.
Commonwealth prosecutor Ania Dutka told the court Milne allegedly had at least 50 individual images and 10 videos, for which he has been charged with 18 offences including nine counts of using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material.
“The facts reveal the extremely graphic, violent and depraved nature of the child abuse material found on the accused’s devices, including videos depicting infants, babies and children,” Ms Dutka told Magistrate Allison Viney in the online bail court on Wednesday.
Ms Dutka described the alleged offending as “sophisticated”, using encrypted applications and virtual private networks to conceal the activity.
She urged the court to deny Milne bail, saying the material was stored in a cloud that could be remotely accessed – and potentially destroyed.
Milne’s solicitor Wilson Tighe sought his bail, stating the volume of files did not constitute the most serious kind of this offending and that imprisonment might not be the only option.
The court also heard Milne would be particularly vulnerable in custody as a gay man with a chronic health condition which requires medication.
But the magistrate was not satisfied any conditions could ameliorate the potential risk Milne could pose to the community and denied his bail.
“Having read (about) the content of the videos, I can say that they are concerning and horrific, and I would think it extremely unlikely that in the scope of sentencing that this would not cross the (imprisonment) threshold,” Ms Viney said.
“In some nearly 20 years of sitting as a judicial officer, I haven’t read many worse than this, quite frankly.”
When he realised he would be refused bail, Milne spoke.
“I’ve essentially been told I’m going to be bashed in here if I go to prison,” Milne said.
“I do fear for my safety.”
The link to his cell was terminated and the matter was adjourned to March 31 for brief service.
Police believe Milne is the final alleged NSW-based offender identified with direct links to the international network.
Police earlier arrested 26-year-old Landon Germanotta-Mills, a one-time Ten Network intern, and former swim coach Mark Sendecky, along with three other men.
Investigators also identified a further 145 alleged offenders overseas, with referrals made to law enforcement across Australia, North America, South America, Europe, New Zealand, and southeast Asia.
Investigations under Strike Force Constantine are continuing.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sixth-man-charged-as-police-expose-global-reach-of-alleged-sydney-pedophile-network/news-story/cb9aea08d45e6d2dc6fdfea6e6ff5280
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWpyMIEO7TM