Clive Palmer to meet the punters on Facebook Live

We have more than a few questions for the former MP at tonight’s Facebook Live chat

Clive Palmer. Picture: Stewart Mclean

Clive goes live

Australians finally will be able to hold Clive Palmer to account tonight. The colourful businessman and former MP has been under the pump recently with the collapse of Queensland Nickel and the international arrest warrant for his nephew Clive Mensink. Not that you’d know it, as Strewth reported yesterday, with all the memes and poems he has been posting on Twitter. But you (yes, you, dear reader) can finally hold Clive’s feet to the fire at 6pm eastern time as he does a Facebook Live chat. Clive will be picking his favourite questions from the Facebook comments on his official page and answering live. “Make sure they’re groggin’ not wobblin’,” Clive posted yesterday. We’ll be putting in some of our own questions: When will you finally pay your workers? Is it appropriate for you to pay Clive Mensink $4000 a week, even after warrants went out, when those workers are still out of pocket? Where is Mensink? Why are you doing this Facebook Live chat when you’ve been accused by liquidators of insolvent trading, shadow directorships and much more? Also, one more question: why are people so unkind?

Laundy in DC

Craig Laundy outside the White House with Trump staffer Chris Liddell. Picture: Twitter

Foreign Minister Julie Bishophas been in Washington this week (see our mates over at Margin Call for more on her adventures) but she’s not the only Canberra pollie in town. Industry, Innovation and Science Assistant Minister Craig Laundyalso has been touring North America during this parliamentary break and he wound up at the White House yesterday. Here’s Laundy outside the presidential pad, exchanging wee gifts with Donald Trump’s director of strategic initiatives Chris Liddell. The latter is a Kiwi by birth, the eighth richest person in the Trump administration and a former chief financial officer at General Motors. Laundy’s clearly hangin’ out with the big guns but he’s still to beat Bishop’s selfies with at least three Trumps.

Penguin prophets

Birds of a feather stick together, with the penguins at the Melbourne Aquarium tipping Adelaide Crows to win Saturday’s AFL grand final. The king and gentoo penguins yesterday had the choice of Richmond-coloured black and yellow fish cakes or Adelaide red, blue and yellow treats. It initially looked like Richmond had the edge before a penguin started choking on a yellow and black fish cake. (If that’s not prophetic, what is?) The penguins did not predict a winner for the NRL grand final between the North Queensland Cowboys and the Melbourne Storm. Like all of Sydney, they don’t really care at this point.

Pyne’s new reality

Christopher Pyne has been accused of living in an alternative reality plenty of times but he now finally has an excuse. Check out the Defence Industry Minister in a pair of virtual reality goggles at Adelaide’s International Astronautical Congress yesterday. He was trying out some whiz-bang simulations from the booming Aussie space sector, which will of course benefit from the government’s previously announced new space agency. Can’t wait to see Pyne launching our first militarised spaceship. Imagine him leading our fight against the Daleks …

Labour ravers

Acid house parties have certainly helped to liven up the British Labour Party’s annual conference this year. Though anyone who watched shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberrycall the US President a “rogue dictator” during her conference speech probably thought they were on acid anyway. You never would have thought the party of Tony Blair and the Iraq war would be comparing Donald TrumptoKim Jong-unon the stump. But, then, you also wouldn’t expect to see old punks and young Marxists dancing to trippy acid music in the conference halls at the “Acid Corbynism” after-party yesterday. It’s all part of Momentum’s (they’re a kind of British GetUp!) plan to get more young people into politics and keep Jeremy Corbyn at the top. We guess Australia has DJ Albospinning the decks at Labor parties but it’s not the same as some Ed DMXand the faint hint of LSD in the air, is it?

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