Clive Palmer demands government help at Yabulu nickel refinery

The demand for government funds comes with the concession that some sacked workers won’t want to work for him.

Clive Palmer speaking at a press conference about Queensland nickel. Pics Tara Croser.

Clive Palmer has demanded further government subsidies for his ailing north Queensland nickel refinery, while conceding some of the sacked workers won’t want to keep working for him.

Workers sacked from the troubled Yabulu plant have no chance of being rehired this financial year — if at all — after the businessman MP yesterday admitted he could not reopen the business until at least July 31.

Adding to the uncertainty, the architects of a proposed community buyback of the refinery are relying on securing hundreds of millions of dollars in government and private loans — including from a federal fund that has not yet been legislated.

Mr Palmer today conceded it was “not a great time” for his sacked employees, but blamed the “great tragedy” on his company’s administrator and political leaders.

“In China, the government spent $30 billion supporting their industry and in Canada, they have got free electricity for the metals trading because they realise we’re in a difficult time,” he told the Seven Network today.

“The administrator decided to freeze the bank account, not hand over any of the cash and to cancel various ore supplies.

“As a result of that, on 11 March, we couldn’t operate legally so we couldn’t re-employ those people. That’s a great tragedy of so many families.”

Mr Palmer said any returning workers would be offered “the same conditions they had when they left” but acknowledged “a certain proportion of the workforce” would refuse to keep working for him.

“We are currently working together a list of people and sending them out communications to see whether they want to come back, because there will be a certain proportion of the workforce that don’t want to come back and ones that do,” he said.

“We have to ascertain what the difference is and decide how we’re going to plug that gap.”