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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Ben Smee

Bill Shorten questions ‘forces at play’ after Steve Bannon’s claim he helped Clive Palmer, damaging Labor’s 2019 election chances

Clive Palmer Bill Shorten Steve Bannon Labor Steven Bannon Jeffrey Epstein China Coalition
Bill Shorten in a suit seated in an audience
Bill Shorten in 2025. The former PM says Steven Bannon’s purported claims to have influenced Clive Palmer’s $60m advertising campaign during the 2019 election campaign are a ‘badge of honour’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Former federal opposition leader Bill Shorten says he wants to know “what forces were at play” during the 2019 federal election, after Steve Bannon purportedly claimed he was behind a $60m advertising strategy that damaged Labor’s campaign.

In text messages released by the US Department of Justice linked to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Bannon, an American far-right political strategist, claimed he had influenced Australian billionaire Clive Palmer’s advertising.

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