Clive Palmer ducks $12m questions

EVIDENCE of Clive Palmer’s company having nothing to do with a port for which he billed the Chinese has been verified.

Clive Palmer stormed out of an interview with Channel 9 while he was on holiday in New Zealand. Picture: Channel Nine

EVIDENCE of Clive Palmer’s company having nothing to do with a port for which he billed the Chinese more than $12 million in eight weeks for “port services” has been independently verified by the federal government.

Mr Palmer has repeatedly rejected Chinese assertions that their cash could not have been withdrawn and spent legitimately by Mr Palmer’s company on “port management services” in August and ­September last year, during his costly campaign to promote the Palmer United Party in the federal election.

He has become angry this week when asked about documents showing $2.167m in Chinese funds was funnelled from a National Australia Bank account, of which he was sole signatory, to a Brisbane agency, Media Circus Network Pty Ltd, which placed some of the PUP’s advertising.

An probe in confidential Brisbane legal proceedings is tracing how a further $10m in Chinese cash was spent a month before the poll, after it went to his $1 company, Cosmo Developments.

“If you want a true answer about it, it was that we had an obligation to provide port services,’’ Mr Palmer told the National Press Club in Canberra.

But evidence of a lack of “port services” has been supported by a senior federal government public servant, Pauline Sullivan, who told Mr Palmer’s company it had attempted to mislead her department over the port.

Federal Court affidavit documents filed two months ago show Ms Sullivan, a delegate to the secretary for the Department of ­Infrastructure, determined that his company was responsible for a “failure to accurately reflect the factual circumstances”, causing a loss of confidence in competence to have a security-related role.

Ms Sullivan determined that “as a matter of fact (Citic Pacific) operates this port facility”.

“The site visit report noted no Mineralogy health, safety, environmental, security or other operational personnel were observed at the port,” she said.

She added: “Despite these factual circumstances of the port, throughout the Maritime Security Plan submitted by Mineralogy it is suggested, contrary to the fact, that Mineralogy operates much of this infrastructure.”

The missing $12m case is likely to be referred to police, despite Mr Palmer, who has begun replying tersely to questions from journalists and storming out of an ABC 7.30 interview, insisting he had done nothing wrong.

In an ugly incident in Queenstown in New Zealand yesterday, he told a Channel 7 cameraman he would have him thrown out of a hotel, adding the Canberra-based reporter, Amelia Brace, could ‘f. k off’. Channel Nine also had a scheduled interview with Mr Palmer in New Zealand.

Text messages seen by The Weekend Australian show Mr Palmer had agreed to the interview at the Sofitel, but angrily canned it when the cameraman turned up.