How does Clive Palmer afford his political campaign?

Iron ore and property are just part of Clive Palmer’s wealth, as he spends big to win political power.

Clive Palmer addresses a United Australia Party event in Hobart. Pic: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

There’s almost 100 million reasons billionaire Clive Palmer has been able to afford to splash out so much on a Senate bid and his United Australia Party’s federal election campaign.

That money has also seen the enthusiastic Queenslander embark on a property-buying spree in his home state over the past year, with Palmer and his family now owning almost a dozen mansions on Sovereign Island on the Gold Coast alone as part of a portfolio worth at least $60 million.

Palmer, a prominent member of The List of Australia’s Richest 250 published by The Australian in late March, receives a $US65m ($93m) cheque each quarter from Hong Kong iron ore mining company CITIC Pacific, from the royalties that flow his way from the huge Sino Iron project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

He also received $350m in one transaction a year ago after a big legal win over CITIC.

Palmer has since spent at between $50m to $100m on a huge advertising campaign both in the lead up to and during the current campaign.

But an analysis of his wealth, estimated at $4.51 billion on The List to make him the 13th richest Australian, shows Palmer has his money held in a diverse range of investments across property, shares, mining tenements, cars and even horses.

The Gold Coast suburb of Paradise Point, featuring the luxury Sovereign and Ephraim islands with contain mansions that have direct water frontage and boat access, seems to be a particular favourite.

Palmer and his wife Anna live in a King Arthurs Court mansion purchased for $9.5m in May 2010. The house includes at least six bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a 22 car basement with a wine cellar and cool room, a large swimming pool a deep water boat mooring and a 12-person elevator.

Clive Palmer’s Sovereign Island mansion on the Gold Coast, pictured in 2016. Pic: Lyndon Mechielsen

Yet that is only the beginning of Palmer and his family’s Paradise Point love affair.

According to RP Data, Palmer and his wife Anna, his son Michael, daughter Emily and nephew Clive Mensink have shelled out $18.3m for no less than 11 other Paradise Point houses.

Mensink is listed as having paid $1.35m for a mansion in King Arthurs Court, Paradise Point, in February 2012, the same year Anna Palmer paid $1.31m for another house in Queen Guineveres Place. Michael Palmer also paid a relatively small $840,000 for a Regents Court house in 2012.

Anna Palmer owns at least four Paradise Point houses, while Michael Palmer owns two. Palmer himself paid $1.825m and $1.784m respectively last August and September for two nearby houses.

Anna Palmer pictured outside the Federal Court in Brisbane in March. Pic: AAP

The median sales price for houses in Paradise Point was $1.15m last year, according to Realestate.com.au. Prices have increased by 46 per cent in the past five years, for an annual compound growth rate of 7.9 per cent.

Last year also saw Palmer spend $12m on a Hamptons-inspired five-bedroom, five-bathroom property on prestigious Hedges Avenue at Mermaid Beach that also features a gym with a boxing ring and climate-controlled wine cellar, as well as snap up a seven bedroom nine-bathroom $7.5m mansion in Brisbane’s exclusive Fig Tree Pocket.

The latter suburb is where Michael Palmer also owns two houses in Ningana Street purchased for a combined $6.95m.

Emily Palmer's Paradise Point mansion. Picture: Realestate.com.au

Palmer himself also paid $2.7m for a 660-square metre luxury penthouse in the suburb of North Ward in Townsville, where he controversially is still yet to reopen the Queensland Nickel refinery which collapsed more than two years ago with debts of hundreds of millions.

Mr Palmer has said he wants to get the refinery going again, and believes there’s $6bn worth of cobalt in the tailings dams owned by Queensland Nickel.

But he is still being pursued by liquidators in the Supreme Court of Queensland who are trying to recover up to $200m in claims against Queensland Nickel.

The latest accounts for Palmer’s private investment company Mineralogy, lodged last December and for the 2018 financial year, show that the worst case financial scenario for Palmer should the liquidator win its case is having to shell out $104,480,207.

Clive Palmer arrives at a court in Brisbane in February for a hearing over the collapse of Queensland Nickel. Pic: AAP

Mineralogy’s accounts also reveal other Palmer investments, including $1.17m worth of motor vehicles and $12m of aircraft.

Palmer has $77m in exploration and mining rights on the books, which are coal exploration tenements in Queensland. He also has iron ore tenements in Western Australia and South Australia, as well as coal tenements in Queensland and NSW.

Mineralogy also lists $224,400 worth of horses in its accounts, which show Palmer himself has lent $31m to the company and that it also has about $298 million in short-term cash deposits.

Palmer also shows up among the top 20 shareholders of the ASX-listed BCI Minerals, which counts another billionaire in Kerry Stokes as a major shareholder. BCI is developing a potash project on the west Pilbara coast in Western Australia.

Its shares have risen 21 per cent since January 1. Palmer is BCI’s fourth biggest shareholder.