The Titanic Clive rises from the deep

According to Australia's hyperventilating mainstream media, PM Scott Morrison's controversial preference deal guarantees Clive Palmer a Senate spot, like The Titanic rising from the deep.

Labor has strongly attacked the deal, but in a dramatic press statement on Monday afternoon, Palmer hit out at federal leader Bill Shorten, calling him a "two-faced liar" for claiming the ALP would never do a preference deal with his party.

He outlined a series of attempts to court preferences dating back to 2013 when he first met with Labor Senator Anthony Chisholm who had since contacted him several times, as recently as last week.

"However, I then turned on the television and Bill Shorten was saying a lot of things about me which were untrue. He was lying to the Australian people," he said.

"And I then decided I want nothing further to do with him or his party because they were two-faced liars. …

"The Labor Party and Shorten were happy to deal on preferences with the United Australia Party and they wanted them, but they were bad losers."

Commenting on the Palmer deal, Shorten sneered, "If you lie down with dogs, you'll catch fleas."

In the third week of the election campaign, there has been a slight improvement in Newspoll, with the Coalition leading Labor 38 – 37 in the primary vote and trailing just 51-49, two-party preferred with Palmer's Australia United Party on 5 percent.

Monday night's leaders debate on the Seven network saw the "undecided audience" give the win to Shorten, although he still gave no clear answer on the cost of his policies, fumbled on the price of an electric car and the issue of some pensioners who will be affected by the axing of franking credits.

Morrison meanwhile has renewed two scare campaigns - a "death tax" which Labor leader Bill Shorten rejected as false, and another round of damning financial modeling of Labor's climate and tax policies.

Two of our most powerful unions, the AMWU and ACTU, have called for reintroduction of death taxes. And we all know the unions pull the Labor puppet's strings.

It's a bit like Shorten repeatedly denying that he had no plans to introduce new taxes on super, then admitting next day he "stuffed up" – he thought they meant new new taxes which will raise about $34 billion.