Clive Palmer’s dinosaur dream now extinct

IT is the demise of a dinosaur park that staff and guests have been predicting for a long time.

IT is the demise of a dinosaur park that long-suffering staff and rare paying guests have been predicting since soon after Clive Palmer first put his indelible brand on a resort once regarded as the finest on the Sunshine Coast.

Its close yesterday — and the sacking of another 40 full-time staff at the Palmer Coolum Resort that employed more than 650 people before Mr Palmer bought his favourite holiday destination four years ago and promised growth — was inevitable as its appeal waned and ­financial losses mounted.

Staff were told the close was necessary to make way for a major refurbishment, described in an internal meeting by general manager Simon Stodart as “stage one of the beginning of a new era”.

His predecessor, Bill Schoch, is suing Mr Palmer in Queensland’s Supreme Court over his abrupt sacking as the resort’s general manager a year ago and there have been four redundancy programs that have whittled the staff down to a couple of dozen.

“The time has come for an extensive overhaul of our iconic Sunshine Coast property to establish it as the premier property not just in its region but all of Queensland,” Mr Stodart said.

Many employees who have seen it being run on a shoestring budget — requests for relatively minor expenditure have been escalated directly to Mr Palmer and his son for approval — doubt there will be big refurbishments.

Total operating costs, including salaries, insurance fees, rates, utilities and maintenance were almost $20 million a year, which meant the resort needed its rooms, restaurants and golf course to be busy every day, say insiders.

The revenue and guest-stay numbers worsened every month and the losses could not be reversed. Mr Palmer’s well documented antics and ideas — including populating the resort with animatronic dinosaurs, driving away the annual Australian PGA golf championship, throwing out a high-paying guest who complained about a bad steak, locking out the quarter-share owners of villas, yelling at staff and accusing them of stealing, and replacing experienced managers with friends — trashed the brand.

A once-iconic destination had descended into a laughing stock that seemed well suited to dinosaurs.

Despite having been bought by Mr Palmer for under $10m from Lend Lease, the investment has been a financial disaster for the federal parliamentarian.

It has also been expensive for property owners in the immediate area as values of luxury homes plummeted more than 50 per cent in some cases. The owners of villas who were locked out of their properties on the resort are awaiting a judgment in a Federal Court case in which they could receive a payout of more than $20m from Mr Palmer.

In January, which should have been a bumper month, the resort recorded a loss of about $500,000, and this was “a good result compared with most months”, according to staff.

“It is a blessing in a way for some of us who just wanted to know what was going to happen — we knew it couldn’t keep going on this way,’’ said one ­employee who was made redundant yesterday.

The golf course will stay open, but the rooms and most of the restaurants are now out of commission.