Bronwyn Bishop and Clive Palmer learn age of entitlement over

And with the Adam Goodes row rumbling on we revisit another Brereton blunder.

Conscience of the nation. Clive Palmer, media release, yesterday:

Clive Palmer is urging the public to join the fight in removing Bronwyn Bishop from the position of Speaker ... “They are tired of the abuse of parliamentary entitlements.”

Palmer’s record. Hedley Thomas, The Australian, October 31, 2014:

Clive Palmer went on a spending spree after siphoning $10 million of Chinese funds into a bank account he controlled, according to fresh documents lodged in the Queensland Supreme Court yesterday. The documents … include evidence that he drew a $6m cheque ... three days before the federal election.

Thomas again, November 8, 2014:

New evidence in a fraud and dishonesty case against Clive Palmer shows he used Chinese cash to funnel $6 million to the coffers of his Palmer United Party and $97,000 to pay a credit card bill, using funds that were meant to pay for the operations of a remote port … China’s state-owned international investment company, which accuses Mr Palmer of dishonesty and fraud, filed documents in the Supreme Court in Brisbane yesterday that reveal all of the details of a series of cheques drawn by the resources tycoon for his personal and political benefit after he took $10m from a bank account, called “Port Palmer Operations”. The funds in the ... Port Palmer Operations account were meant to pay for operating costs at the West Australian port of Cape Preston, which Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy was neither in possession of nor operating at the time the money was taken.

And again. The Weekend Australian, June 6, 2015

A confidential inquiry into spending by Clive Palmer, his confidants and his companies of about $23 million in Chinese funds has found some of the conduct had the appearance of being “dishonest” and “fraudulent” … A scathing judgment from a closed-door arbitration tribunal … slammed “utter misrepresentation” over the funds … [saying] it appeared that Mineralogy and a key Palmer executive “exploited the [funds] ruthlessly and cynically”, adding that cash was taken “without any regard” for the terms of deeds, which required the money to be spent on a remote iron ore port ... [the] judgment said Mineralogy “had not shown any entitlement to any payment from the [funds] in respect of any of the years 2011, 2012 and 2013”.

Thomas continues:

The judgment explored the many withdrawals of the Chinese funds, including the biggest with two cheques — one for $10m and one for $2.167m — written by Mr Palmer to bankroll his Palmer United Party and pay its advertising agency, Media Circus, leading up to the 2013 federal election … [It] found: “The explanation for the two withdrawals is beset with so many curiosities as to make it incapable of acceptance. In particular, it cannot be accepted that the two payments totalling $12,167,065 were taken from the fund for any purpose made legitimate by clause 5 of the deeds. The purported explanation must be rejected.”

And while the Dermott Brereton-Rebecca Wilson radio clash remains fresh in our minds, here’s a Dennis Cometti classic call from the nineties:

Brereton: And the ball spills free to Kickett ...

Cometti: Troy Cook you mean?

Brereton: Yes, well, they do look rather alike ...

Cometti: How so Dermott?

Brereton: [Realising that sounded rather racist] Um, well, they are both, er ...

Cometti: Midfielders, yes Dermott.