Clive Palmer says he can’t remember $6 million PUP payment

Clive Palmer ‘has no memory’ of authorising a payment of almost $6m from Queensland Nickel to PUP.

Clive Palmer arriving at ABC studios on the Gold Coast last night for his Lateline appearance. Picture Glenn Hampson

Clive Palmer claims he has no memory of authorising a payment of almost $6 million from his Queensland Nickel company to the Palmer United Party.

Asked on ABC-TV last night whether he had briefly resumed as director in January last year to authorise a payment of $5.94m to the party, Mr Palmer said “I’m not sure of that”.

Pressed by Lateline host Tony Jones, Mr Palmer said: “Well I don’t know if I did or not, Tony. I’d have to look at the records.

“At that time, Tony, I owned the company 100 per cent. It had zero debt. And that year, June 2015, it had a surplus.

“That was my money. It was the company’s money.

“It wasn’t anyone else’s money.”

Mr Palmer said “it wouldn’t matter if it was” him, who had personally authorised the $6m payment, because it was his money.

He also dodged questions about his use of the alias Terry Smith to run Queensland Nickel by proxy, and blamed a downturn in the global nickel price for the company’s woes.

He said his company had been exposed to a nickel price which was now at $3.80, having been $7.50 when Queensland Nickel took over from BHP in 2009.

He denied he had used Terry Smith as an alias to authorise payments to PUP, saying he had merely been using the email ­account of another person, ­presumably named Terry Smith.

“What I’m saying to you is what that’s about is, I’m a member, like five other people at the company, of the capital expenditure committee, which is ­normally what a shareholder will do,” Mr Palmer said.

“And as I go around Australia, I often send an email back from whatever email I can use. That’s all that’s about.

“I’ve been sending hundreds of emails all over the place every day, Tony.

“I log into airports, I use other people’s emails, but that’s fine.”