Bill Schoch’s costly journey from friend of Clive Palmer to bitter foe

IN happier times ­accountant Bill Schoch and his friend and client Clive Palmer exchanged gifts, cards and warm compliments.

Clive Palmer announces his candidate for Fisher, Palmer resort manager Bill Schoch. Innovation Centre, USC. His favourite band McGuiness and co. played classic Australian songs for the waiting media. Sippy Downs. Pic Megan Slade. Story Kat Donaghey.

IN happier times ­accountant Bill Schoch and his friend and client Clive Palmer exchanged gifts, cards and warm compliments.

Their ties can be traced back to May 1978 when Mr Schoch’s Brisbane firm started helping the budding entrepreneur with audits, tax and valuations. In 1981, Mr Palmer presented a copy of his cherished book of poems — Dreams, Hopes and Reflections — with a note “to my good friend, Bill”.

For almost 30 years until 2006 — the year Mr Palmer hit the jackpot with the first payment in a $US415 million windfall from China-owned company Citic ­Pacific — Mr Schoch’s Queen Street firm attended to much of the growing finance-related work. The relationship went to another level in June 2011, ­according to documents filed by Mr Schoch in Brisbane’s Supreme Court, when Mr Palmer called and said: “Bill, work for five years for $5m. That’s a salary of $1m a year. You will be on a starting salary for a short time and then go up to the million a year when money comes in.”

Mr Schoch said that once on staff he busied himself in transactions and opportunities large and small for Mr Palmer.

He said his role included trying to sell Mr Palmer’s Galilee Basin coal interests to BHP Billiton, as well as looking for funding from China Shenhua Energy Company to develop the resource. He said he provided some tax advice, when asked, and was tasked with running the newly purchased Hyatt Regency Resort on the Sunshine Coast, which he managed through staff cuts and rebranding as a dinosaur park. He became a director of two resort-related companies.

Mr Schoch was on $150,000 a year. He claims this was ample as he had been promised a lift to $1m a year when the next big windfall occurred. He knew Mr Palmer was banking on a cash infusion of up to $500m a year in royalties from Citic Pacific for the mining of iron ore. But the windfall never came. Litigation between the partners in an iron ore development in Western Australia, as well as the decision of the Newman government in Queensland to reject Mr Palmer’s demands for rail approvals for his coal interests in the Galilee Basin, meant no big payday.

With Mr Palmer determined to wreak political revenge and gain influence in Canberra, he ­installed Mr Schoch as the Palmer United Party’s candidate for the federal seat of Fisher, north of Brisbane. Mr Palmer told journalists in May last year that Mr Schoch was “an outstanding individual”.

“He has a character that is ­impeccable. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got in life, what matters is the content of your character and I’m nowhere near as rich as Bill when it comes to that,” Mr Palmer said. Mr Palmer promoted Mr Schoch as a future federal treasurer, but the dinosaur park manager failed to win Fisher.

By November last year, with Mr Palmer’s dinosaurs and resort being ridiculed in the community, Mr Schoch claims he was told bluntly by his old friend: “You are managing things badly here, you don’t have an organisation chart.”

In early December he was given a month’s notice. A week later, he claims, Mr Palmer told him: “You don’t have a contract for five years. Your f..king contract is for $150,000. Leave by Tuesday. Sue me.”

Shortly after Mr Schoch launched Supreme Court proceedings against Mr Palmer and two of his companies, the tycoon emailed him: “I suggest u see a doctor it’s clear u need medical assistance.”

Mr Palmer then instructed his new resort manager, Simon Stodart, to send a massive bill shock to Bill Schoch. On April 10, the ­accountant received an invoice and a written demand for $633,150 — purportedly for the cost of his accommodation and meals at the resort of which he was resident manager until his sacking. The sum was payable “in full within seven days”.

Mr Palmer and his lawyers have rejected many of the claims made by Mr Schoch. They have described the work he was performing as “clerical”.