The impact was immediate after Burston dined with Palmer on Friday, June 15. Burston resigned from One Nation the following Monday morning and told the Senate he would sit as an independent. A few hours later he held a press conference with Palmer in a Senate courtyard to announce he had joined the UAP. Not long afterwards, Burston spoke privately of Palmer’s intention to spend $50 million on the next election. It seemed a fantasy. Only later would it turn out to be real. Why does this matter? Because Australia confronts the lessons of an election campaign that turned, in part, on an avalanche of private money that surprised many with its speed and scale. Palmer knew what he wanted to buy. He also knew that nobody could stop him. Two laws made this possible. Both should be under review in the parliamentary inquiry into the election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Unfortunately, nobody should hold their breath for change. The first is the section of the Commonwealth Electoral Act that requires a party to prove it has 500 members before it can be registered, but which allows an exemption when a single MP or Senator wants to set up the party.

Loading This is how Burston helped Palmer create the UAP without any need to prove they had real members. Only later did they assemble their motley collection of candidates. In a submission to the committee, ABC election analyst Antony Green notes that South Australia is the only state with the same provision. Green (who does not name Palmer in his submission) says the right of an MP or Senator to register a party in this way should be removed and the threshold should be increased to 1000. The second problem is another gap in the law. For all the concerns about the way money buys power in this country, there is no cap on political expenditure to match the limits applied in Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Palmer could have gone to $100 million if he had chosen, driven by mining royalties from China and his craving for power and attention. There was no restraint on his advertising onslaught.

Democratic Audit of Australia, a group that includes eminent academics in the field of political science and electoral law, identifies this as a big factor in this year’s election. It points to Palmer’s impact to argue for a return to spending limits that existed in the past, such as caps on candidates prior to 1980. “Not only do spending limits address unfairness and perceived corruption, they also promote informed voting,” says the group, in a submission led by emeritus professor Marian Sawer of the Australian National University. The key concept is that no significant voice is overwhelmed by another because of the weight of money. Palmer’s impact on the election will be contested for as long as psephologists study ballot papers. The return on his $53.6 million (not including billboards and social media) was a paltry 3.4 per cent of the primary vote nationwide but Labor is convinced his attack ads helped turn voters off Bill Shorten. Was this decisive? The best answer came from Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor last month when he said it would be “inexcusable” to ignore Labor’s own mistakes but also wrong to minimise the Palmer problem. “Whether we like it or not, Palmer has created a template for wealthy individuals to mug voters in future elections, by expending obscene amounts of money and deploying an entirely misleading campaign,” O’Connor said.

What has Palmer bought? He helped to prevent a Labor victory, a tax agenda that would cost him money and a climate change policy that would hurt his coal interests. The degree to which he helped can be disputed. The fact of the help cannot. It is too soon to calculate the return on his investment. This is a more urgent and more dangerous trend for Australia than other issues coming up in the election review, not least the question of whether the early polling period runs for three or two weeks. Questions of money are usually a freedom-of-speech issue for conservative politicians, who prefer no limits on spending even though electoral laws place all kinds of constraints on what can be said with that money. These limits are the reality of campaigning. Why should the volume of money be exempt? Scott Morrison has no reason to worry about another Palmer spendathon – if, that is, he can keep this populist plutocrat on side. The government is likely to spurn calls to change the law. But a problem does not stop just because a government ignores it.