Clive Palmer not our host for Obama event, says JFK library

Clive Palmer says he needs to be in the US in May to host a dinner for Barack Obama, but the JFK Library denies this.

Clive Palmer with son Michael and Ted Kennedy in 2009.

Clive Palmer has told liquidators he needs to be in the US next month, two days before a compulsory court hearing in Australia, to host a dinner for former US president Barack Obama — but that is news to the JFK Library which will hold the gala event.

A library spokeswomen told The Australian the function would not be hosted by Mr Palmer but by John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline.

She said that while Mr Palmer was one of 42 directors of the ­library’s foundation, he would not play a formal role on the night. She said many directors had chosen to attend the event, but it was not compulsory and each director had to pay their travel costs to Boston.

Mr Palmer has donated $US4.5 million to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation since 2000.

The Federal Court has ­ordered Mr Palmer to attend a hearing on May 9 into the collapse of his company Queensland Nickel with debts of about $300 million and the loss of about 800 jobs. Mr Palmer’s lawyers have written to the Turnbull government’s liquidators to tell them that Mr Palmer has to be in the US on May 7.

“I am instructed by Mr Clive Palmer that he as director of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston USA, is hosting a dinner for former President Obama to ­receive a profile in courage award on May 7, 2017. This has been a long standing commitment,” the letter read.

Mr Palmer has said he will be back in Australia by the court hearing on May 9, although he would make it with hours to spare.

He is not a director of the JFK Library, but he is a director since 2010 of the JFK Library Foundation, a non-profit organisation that relies on philanthropy to support and staff the presidential library and museum.

The former federal MP told the JFK Library in 2010 he was “Professor Clive F Palmer” ­despite holding only an honorary adjunct professor title from Gold Coast’s Bond University.

The Australian revealed in 2014 that Mr Palmer’s donations to the foundation eclipsed those from big US companies, including AT&T, the Walt Disney Corporation, Bank of America, Boeing, IBM, and Tiffany. A $US2.2m “capstone gift” was made by Mr Palmer to support the Profile in Courage Trust. Mr Palmer made another donation of $US635,900 to the trust in honour of senator Ted Kennedy, the former president’s brother who died in 2009, and gave a $US500,000 gift to support digital archiving and other yearly donations.

The Centennial May Dinner on May 7 will bestow the 2017 Centennial John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Mr Obama for his “enduring commitment to democratic ideals and elevating the standard of political courage in a new century”, the JFK Library said.

Mr Palmer has said his ­obsession with JFK began as a child. “I was eight when Kennedy came on the TV in our home in (Melbourne suburb) Williamstown, talking about the future and how we had to think of the world we wanted to leave for our kids. I remember saying to Mum and Dad, ‘You’d better vote for this guy in the Melbourne council elections,’ Mr Palmer once said.

“What JFK and I have in common is an interest in the ­future and a belief in leadership.”