After the Australian Labor Party held a leadership caucus on Thursday night, June 27, the top two rivals for the position of prime minister was narrowed to ALP new leader Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Tony Abbott. However, Aussie voters should not yet rule out mining billionaire Clive Palmer.

While Messrs Rudd and Abbott may need to issue controversial statements just to get media coverage, Mr Palmer could even actually afford to bar some media men whom he does not like because the PM wannabe may own a newspaper one day.

Reports said that Mr Palmer had trademarked the name The Australian Times, which could well be the voice of his Palmer United Party in seeking to be Australia's 29th prime minister.

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The application indicated that the daily would have a printed and online edition.

By having a newspaper of his own, Mr Palmer could afford to repeat what he did a few weeks ago when he walked out of a press conference organised to announce the candidates of his party for Queensland after the reporter asked him questions about his businesses.

He had recently filed a defamation lawsuit before the Queensland Supreme Court against the News Limited newspaper, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and two of its journalists.

Another mining magnate and the richest person in Australia, Gina Rinehart, has substantial shares in Fairfax Media although she has no known political ambitions since her popularity is likely slightly just higher than the recently deposed 27th prime minister, Julia Gillard.

However, her ALP leadership loss has made Ms Gillard more popular now, at least based on the brisk sales at the Parliament's gift shop of souvenir coffee mugs bearing her face.

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