Former Premier Rob Borbidge advised mining minnow now facing a wind-up bid at the hands of its own legal team

A former Queensland premier is advising a mining company which faces a wind-up bid at the hands of its own legal team

PREMIER DRAMA

Former Premier Rob Borbidge acts as an adviser for a mining minnow which faces a wind-up bid at the hands of its own legal team.

Ramsden Law lodged a claim in Brisbane Supreme Court this month seeking to liquidate GWM Resources over an alleged $200,000 debt.

A spokesman for GWM, which trades as Christmas Mines, said the company hoped to reach a negotiated settlement but would lodge a defence in court if that proved impossible.

Borbidge told City Beat yesterday that he had only “quite limited’’ involvement over the past year with the company, which is controlled by three Chinese nationals and hopes to develop a jade mine in WA.

Rob Borbidge

Borbidge, who is featured prominently on the company’s website, said he had not yet been paid for his services and was unaware of the Ramsden lawsuit.

Ramsden principal John Ramsden did not return a call and his colleague, Ben Twomey, declined to comment.

Launched in 2009, GWM previously fended off a wind-up claim in 2013 and only released its 2017 financial year report this past January.

The report showed the company suffered a $500,324 net loss following the prior year’s $905,109 puddle of red ink.

Auditors warned of “a material uncertainty’’ about its ability to survive since liabilities exceeded assets by $1.4 million.

It’s not the first time Borbidge has been associated with a troubled company.

He previously served as chairman of failed Gold Coast financier Asset Loans, which fell in to administration with $30 million of debts in 2008.

It later operated under a deed of company arrangement before a new group of investors took over, injected fresh capital and changed the name.

PYRRHIC VICTORY

The competition regulator yesterday hailed a Federal Court ruling which imposed a $2.3 million penalty on a Brisbane souvenir business for making false and misleading claims about alleged Aboriginal goods which were actually made in Indonesia.

But it’s really a Pyrrhic victory. The ACCC will never collect the money because the company, Kippa-Ring-based Birubi Art Pty Ltd, was wound up by sole owner and director Ben Wooster in October last year with debts of $172,307.

An agency spin doctor acknowledged as much. “Despite the unlikelihood of the ACCC recouping any of the penalty funds, there is a clear need for a penalty that will deter other businesses from engaging in similar conduct,’’ he said.

Birubi Art

Birubi sold nearly 50,000 boomerangs, bullroarers, didgeridoos and message stones in retail outlets across Australia over a two-year period to late 2017.

The items were displayed with tags that said “Aboriginal Art,’’ “genuine’’ and “handcrafted’’ but made no mention of where they were manufactured.

After the ACCC sued Birubi in March last year, the business quickly fell apart, according to a liquidator’s report.

It reveals that Wooster sold almost $40,000 worth of Birubi’s assets to another one of his entities, Gifts Mate Pty Ltd, in June 2018, just four months before he pulled the plug on Birubi.

Wooster also co-founded another company, WAM Clothing Pty Ltd, late last year and it claims to have been “chosen as the exclusive worldwide copyright licensee for a range of clothing bearing the Aboriginal flag design’’.

Wooster, who once told a parliamentary inquiry that authentic Aboriginal artists “are all the victims of fake and ripped off art,’’ could not be reached for comment yesterday.

RED CARPET

They’ll be rolling out a real red carpet tonight (THURSDAY) in Brisbane for the highly-anticipated opening of the Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus.

Invited guests will be treated to pre-show and post-show parties at QPAC.

Igor Tsvirko (Spartacus) with Margarita Shrayner (Phrygia), Bolshoi dancers from the Spartacus ballet.

Among those on the list are ConocoPhillips top gun Nick McKenna, MinterEllison boss Andrew Rentoul, Heritage Bank CFO Paul Williams, Singapore Airlines regional VP Phillip Goh and Moet Hennessy state sales manager Ralph Anderson

No surprise that Queensland Ballet’s Li Cunxin, along with more than a few pollies, also plan to attend.