Clive Palmer probe to include workers

CLIVE Palmer’s senior employees are being warned they will need to reveal details of their contracts, duties and all payments from a $12m account.

Clive Palmer arrives at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

CLIVE Palmer’s senior employees are being warned under expected legal orders they will need to reveal details of their work contracts, duties and all payments from an account that held more than $12 million in ­Chinese funds before it was allegedly wrongfully siphoned out.

Documents obtained from the Federal Court show hundreds of thousands of dollars in super­annuation, salaries and other ­entitlements for employees of Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy was paid with funds alleged to have been taken from the disputed bank account. The funds were allegedly also used to pay for the work of other companies.

Other documents, obtained from the Supreme Court in Brisbane this week, provide a glimpse of an ongoing and secret investigation being run by a retired judge, in charge of closed-door ­arbitration proceedings, to trace more than $12m taken in two lump sums last year without ­Chinese permission.

The Chinese government-owned company Citic Pacific, which is pursuing the funds, wants to know whether its money was wrongfully used to bankroll the Palmer United Party’s electoral campaign. A sum of $10m was withdrawn from a National Australia Bank account in August and a further $2.167m came out of the same account in September, days before the federal election.

A legal order to NAB requires it to provide “all documents in relation to the opening of the bank account” (called Port Palmer Operations), details of all signatories, copies of two cheques — numbered 2046 and 2073 — for $10m and $2,167,065.60 used for the two withdrawals last year, as well as bank statements.

The terms of the legal order suggest lawyers for Mr Palmer, who has strenuously denied any wrongful expenditure, have not volunteered these key documents to the arbitration proceedings or do not have them in their ­possession.

The resources tycoon’s high-level employees who have been involved in the arbitration proceedings are now preparing for more legal orders to turn over their salary package arrangements, a senior source close to Mineralogy revealed yesterday.

He said they had been warned they might be formally questioned about who instructed the $12m-plus in withdrawals, where the cash was funnelled, and what was said about it at the time.

The staff will be drawn in as the investigation seeks to determine how much Chinese money from the NAB cheque account funded salaries, superannuation and other perks for people who were working for Mr Palmer and Mineralogy, and not for Citic ­Pacific.

The Mineralogy-controlled bank account was set up for the sole purpose of funding the operation of the Cape Preston port in Western Australia’s Pilbara ­region, but Citic Pacific suspects the $23m it has deposited has been paying for Mr Palmer’s ­separate commercial and political interests.

Mr Palmer said last night he didn’t “knock off” the money and accused Citic of not paying for Australian resources had been exported to China.

“That money — the particular $12m you’re talking about — is in the account,” Mr Palmer told Sky News. “It’s available to me at any time. It’s a surplus of funds that are in there.”

He said he was not aware of any “complaint” being investigated by police.

Mr Palmer yesterday attacked The Australian for reporting that Queensland Supreme Court-sanctioned demands for bank ­account and rent payment details were set out in the legal orders to NAB and a commercial landlord, Knight Frank (Australia), which manages the Perth office space used by Mineralogy and the Palmer United Party.

The demands in the legal ­orders are one facet of a widening investigation in the arbitration proceedings, while the disclosure in the Supreme Court of a small part of the orders of retired judge Richard Chesterman shows ­Mineralogy has been put under pressure.

Mr Palmer, who was called a “crook” by Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney in state ­parliament last month amid ­revelations over the missing funds, said the claims in The Australian relating to Mineralogy’s dealings with Citic Pacific were “completely false”.

“This is just part of an ongoing campaign by The Australian and News Limited to undermine me and the Palmer United Party because the party soon will assume the balance of power,’’ he said in a statement issued by spokesman Andrew Crook.

“Citic currently owes Mineralogy millions of dollars and uses the courts as part of a Chinese government strategy to break Australian enterprises and take control of Australian assets without paying for them.”

Mr Palmer’s company last year explained the $12m-plus withdrawals with a one-line entry, “Port Management Services”, resulting in more legal action over a long-troubled iron ore project that has so far cost the Chinese government-owned-and-run company almost $10 billion.

Knight Frank (Australia) and property group CBRE yesterday confirmed to The Australian they had received the legal orders to provide documents about Mineralogy’s payments, while NAB cited privacy provisions.

A Knight Frank spokeswoman said: “We have received the court documents, they are being discussed with the clients, and they are currently being dealt with.”

A CBRE spokeswoman said: “We are aware of the request and we will consider it as we would any subpoena or request for information.”

An NAB spokeswoman said: “For privacy reasons, we are unable to comment on matters involving our customers.”