Will a hard border divide Tucker and Clive in Perth?
The former Fox host was once a fan of Mark McGowan’s signature Covid policy.
Taylor Swift might have skipped Perth on her recent Australian tour, but another American entertainer with an outsized ability to influence elections is soon headed our way.
Tucker Carlson plans to visit the country later this year for ‘The Australian Freedom Conferences’, presented by Clive Palmer’s Minerology. A stop at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre is scheduled for 24 June. Palmer himself will interview the ousted Fox News anchor, who now publishes on Elon Musk’s X and his own streaming platform.
Promotional material suggests the Freedom Conferences will focus on Australia’s Covid response. Carlson and Palmer share a lot of common ground when it comes to Covid, but there’s one pandemic measure that could spark a good debate between them: Mark McGowan’s hard border.
In September 2021, Carlson told millions of Fox viewers the policy “seemed common sense”.
In a 12-minute Tucker Carlson Tonight segment, he lamented that Australia had descended into Covid-induced authoritarianism. The “sad truth”, he said, was that Australia looked “a lot like China did at the beginning of the pandemic.”
But he made an exception for Western Australia.
“Fifty thousand fans just crowded inside a stadium for a rugby match in Perth, the capital of Western Australia,” he said. “No one was beaten with night sticks or hosed by the police.
“The rugby match was not a super spreader event. Western Australia has had virtually no cases of COVID. How does that happen? How does Western Australia not lock down, but remain virtually COVID free? Simple. By controlling its borders.
“Western Australia did not let thousands of people stream in from anywhere they wanted to in the world. They're not Texas. They didn't care about protecting their borders. They weren't worried about being called racist. It seemed common sense, and it worked.”
Carlson said the federal government wanted WA to open for economic reasons, but “the problem with Australia's economy right now does not come from Western Australia closing its borders; it comes from the lockdowns.”
Clive Palmer famously and repeatedly made his objections to the hard border known in both the courts and full-page newspaper ads. Part of his argument was that it was bad for business.
"Closing down the border is not only an act of stupidity by WA Premier Mark McGowan, but it is against the Australian constitution, and I am confident the High Court will see it that way as well," he said in 2020.
The High Court did not. It threw out Palmer’s legal challenge in October 2021, the month after Carlson’s segment had aired.
Carlson has recently made high-profile trips to both Canada and Russia. You’d think Perth would be further down the list of must-visit destinations for a far-right pundit. It’s hard to conceive he wants to see the land of the hard border for himself, or sit down with ‘Emperor McGowan’ for a softball interview like the one he conducted with Vladimir Putin. So why is Carlson coming here, and what’s in it for him and Palmer?
Putting aside the obvious financial motives (the cheapest seat at the Perth show will set you back $110, the most expensive $275), there are political reasons the trip could be mutually beneficial.
Perth Extremism Research Network Director and Curtin University lecturer Dr Ben Rich told The Last Place on Earth a political outsider like Palmer would find someone like Carlson a useful ally.
“More and more, what we are seeing is that these groups and individuals that historically would be national in character… they're building these more global networks that support each other,” he said.
“This creates a greater sense in their followers that they are a part of something more substantial than just the national struggle… This creates a kind of solidarity, and then out of that you create a greater degree of political authenticity and legitimacy.
“Palmer sort of had his moment in the sun. I think his political project over the last several years has been in more and more disarray… I think he's kind of looking for opportunities where he can get them.
“It’s a good correlation moment, because Tucker Carlson is currently going through this process of renegotiating where he fits in this wider right-wing or far-right media architecture.
“It’s an opportunistic thing for both parties involved.”
Through a representative, Palmer declined an interview request for this story. Carlson’s people never got back to us. Perhaps we’ll have more luck in June.
