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.

History repeated when a port worker in Gladstone asked him about tax relief for him and his mates who were earning $250,000 a year …."Well, were going to look at that". (He already has, and plans to hit those workers and others classed as "the big end of town" with higher taxes).

If he's that incompetent or untruthful, he should give the game away.

But, with all the media focus on Clive Palmer's Australia United Party preferences, Labor's traditional ties with best mates, the Greens, continue to fly under the radar.

It must have been a pretty easy choice for the PM when that party also wants death duties, defence spending diverted to overseas aid, a nation-destroying ban on coal mining ($67 billion for the economy last year) 100 percent renewables and 100 percent electric vehicles.

We know they are soft on drugs and want to legalise cannabis, but have they got a secret plot of money trees in amongst the pot plants?

What will Labor's climate policy cost? Don't ask, unless you want to see the most inept ducking and weaving since Anthony Mundine's latest bout with Jeff Horn. Or, almost $0.5 trillion if you believe expert analyst Brian Fisher of BA Economics (who was an adviser to Hawke, Keating and Howard governments).

Shorten says that's wrong, so come on 'fess up, Bill, we're sick of hearing "It's a specific mythical number... what's the cost of doing nothing?" ... Er, that would be nothing, if you believe Australia's chief Scientist Alan Finkel. Cut our CO2 emissions to zero, for practically zero effect, as we represent just 1.3 percent of the world's total.

We'd be better off spending those billions on preparing for extreme weather events by building more dams and hydro-power, allowing our hard-hit farmers to build effective fire breaks, and clearing undergrowth in national parks. Remember the recently revised Bradfield Scheme, feeding northern floodwaters into the Murray/Darling? Too damn logical?

We'll probably persist with largely ineffective water buy-backs while the major parties throw mud over 'Watergate' deals with a company based in the Cayman Islands in an attempt to keep the rivers flowing.

Labor and the Greens have questioned the $80 million buy-back in 2017 from Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA) when Barnaby Joyce was Agriculture Minister, but Joyce hit back by pointing out Labor also dealt with the same company, and the deal was approved by the department.

Two years on, it seems to be water under the bridge.