At $9m a head, PUP seats take top price in show

THE three remaining PUP seats are the most expensive in federal parliament, at roughly $9m a head in donations.

CHINA’S unknowing contribution of more than $12 million to Clive Palmer and his Palmer United Party combined with a further $14m injected by companies controlled by him make the three remaining PUP seats the most expensive in federal parliament, at roughly $9m a head.

The upshot of the record-breaking sums of sunken capital, some of which are the subject of ongoing police fraud squad investigations into Beijing’s claims of dishonesty by Mr Palmer, has been the election of the tycoon to federal parliament, along with the senators — Jacqui Lambie (who has since fallen out with PUP), Glenn Lazarus, and Zhenya Wang. For the remaining PUP trio, the price of power works out at about $9m each.

Australian Electoral Commission figures disclosed yesterday show that Mr Palmer’s tilt for power in the 2013 federal election and the subsequent Senate re-run has come in at a price of about $26m, but almost half was funded by China, which accuses Mr Palmer of dishonestly siphoning $12.167m of Beijing’s cash.

The returns from the AEC show the PUP benefitted to the tune of $26m in the 12 months to June 30 last year after donations by the tycoon and companies he controls.

GRAPHIC: Political donations

The breakdown is Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd, the entity for his loss-making nickel refinery in Townsville ($15,216,476); the loss-making flagship company Mineralogy Pty Ltd ($8,238,691); the loss-making dinosaur park on the Sunshine Coast, Palmer Coolum Resort Pty Ltd ($2,285,849); and Mr Palmer’s personal contribution ($101,833).

A further $2,828,547 went to the PUP courtesy of the AEC — as taxpayer-funded payment in ­recognition of the number of votes the PUP received across the ­country in 2013 and in the subsequent Senate re-run in Western Australia.

The contribution from the AEC and the other sums means that PUP received a total of $28,822,428 in the financial year to June 30, 2014.

The returns disclose that Mr Palmer’s PUP, which failed to win a seat in the Queensland election at the weekend, owed the National Australia Bank $82,627.

The PUP owed $133,524 to Crook Media, the company controlled by Mr Palmer’s confidant and strategist Andrew Crook, who is currently defending criminal charges relating to alleged fraud and kidnapping of an NAB executive to an Indonesian island.

The party had one further debt to Mr Palmer’s lawyers, ­HopgoodGanim, for $88,624 at the time of the AEC return, which was filed by Mr Palmer’s other close adviser, Peter Burke, in Oct­ober, amended in November and released by the AEC yesterday.

Not disclosed in the AEC documents is the origin of more than $12m in Chinese funds siphoned from a NAB account, called ‘Port Palmer Operations’, and transferred into PUP and its advertising agency, Media Circus Network, and several other entities by Mr Palmer shortly before the early September 2013 poll.

One of the sums siphoned from the account — $2,167,065 — which is the subject of ongoing police fraud squad investigations, is listed in the AEC documents as having been donated by Queensland Nickel on September 1, 2013.

On August 22, the same Palmer-controlled company, according to PUP’s disclosure to the AEC, donated $1,247,844 to the party, following a $5,750,000 cash injection from Queensland Nickel to PUP on August 8. The company’s final contribution occurred on the last day of the financial year, June 30, and amounted to $1,548,159.

According to the returns, the largest single donation to PUP, $7,772,627, came from Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy Pty Ltd at the end of June last year — nine months after the federal election. On the same day, PUP received $415,146 from Mineralogy, which has been downsizing staff and selling assets amid a sick balance sheet.

Once-confidential documents released in Supreme Court civil proceedings, in which Mr Palmer strenuously denies claims of fraud and dishonesty, have previously revealed that two cheques — for $10m and $2.167m — in August and September 2013 were signed by Mr Palmer, after he had ­become sole signatory of the account into which the Chinese funds were deposited for the purpose of running a remote iron ore port. Mr Palmer’s company, Mineralogy, told Citic Pacific that the money had been spent on “port management services” for the iron ore port in Western Australia, but the documents show that $2.167m went to the Brisbane agency, Media Circus Network, which managed the saturation ­advertising by his party in 2013.