Sketch: Colourful Clive and the marvel that is his grey matter

There comes a moment in any Clive Palmer press conference when you feel you are in freefall through his brain.

Clive Palmer in his office at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith

There inevitably comes a moment in any Clive Palmer press conference when you no longer feel like you’re merely hearing the man speak but are actually in freefall through his brain.

Standing in the Senate courtyard, autumn sun on his white hair, Palmer released his mental avalanche on a far bigger crowd than the almost non-existent one that had received his bowing-out speech a little earlier in the House of Reps.

Behind him, two men in suits dutifully hung on to the frame supporting a big yellow backdrop emblazoned with the words “Palmer United Party — ‘Bringing People Together’.” Given the speed with which PUP has shed its parliamentary members during its short life, the inverted commas around “Bringing People Together” looked less like punctuation and more like self-conscious irony.

“While I’m here,” Palmer declared early in proceedings, “I’ve got to apologise to the people of Tasmania for Jacqui Lambie’s behaviour … when she left our party.” Lambie’s fellow apostate Glenn Lazarus was also dealt with: “He crumbled and couldn’t take the pressure.”

INQUIRER: Hedley Thomas on Clive Palmer’s legacy

There was sarcasm, there was philosophy, there were desires for both lawn bowls and a risque life, there were cultural and historical allusions. “Did you ever see that movie with Robert Redford (about) Watergate? They used to meet in the little carpark and I could take youse all down to the carpark, you could have a press conference and we could say ‘Follow the money’.”

A good tip for Queensland Nickel’s former workers.

It being a Palmer event, there were moments of self-contradiction. Coy on whether he was mulling over a move to the Senate, Palmer said: “We can’t give you all the news now or you wouldn’t come to the press conference.”

We’ll have to wait and see what happens, he added. A short time later: “Our party doesn’t believe in professional politicians that answer the media like ‘On the other hand, well maybe that’s the situation, I’ll think about that’.”

On his wife’s role vis a vis his Senate deliberations: “I’ll ask her advice. I wouldn’t ask for her permission, because we have an equal relationship, you know, gender equality.” A few minutes later, when asked about the prospects of Titanic II: “I’d have to ask my wife what I’m allowed to do after I retire.”

Senator Dio Wang, an oasis of sober stillness, provided the yin to his leader’s blustery yang. When Palmer was asked when he’d first canvassed with Wang a possible move to the Senate and answered “I didn’t”, Wang merely blinked twice. There wasn’t so much as a flicker of facial muscle to be seen.

Random Clive memories began to be triggered. The Rolls-Royce; the mirage of Titanic II; the mercurial veering between theatricality, sledging and over-the-top self-deprecation; the time he wheeled out Al Gore, who spent the whole time looking like a man in a dream.

And then, after 20 minutes of full Palmer mental immersion, it was done. “Anyway, God bless you all, I’ve got to go.”