Clive Palmer ‘should quit as member for Fairfax’

The embattled MP responds to calls to resign, amid poor polling and questions about the running of his Qld refinery.

Clive Palmer won’t quit politics despite a new poll showing voter support in his Sunshine Coast electorate is virtually non-existent.

A Galaxy poll shows his primary support is sitting at just two per cent - down from 26.5 per cent when he narrowly won the seat on preferences at the 2013 election.

“There’s no reason why I wouldn’t run. There are a lot of people in the electorate that have given me a lot of support,” he told ABC radio.

Mr Palmer said elections weren’t all about winning. “You don’t just run because you think you have to be guaranteed to win. Democracy is about choice.”

The poll of 506 Fairfax voters, published in The Courier-Mail, shows 83 per cent are dissatisfied with his performance. Just seven per cent believe he’s doing a satisfactory job.

The poll was conducted six days after Mr Palmer’s company Queensland Nickel sacked 237 workers at its Yabulu refinery near Townsville.

Mr Palmer has since had to defend more than $20 million in donations the company made to bankroll his Palmer United Party, and Queensland Nickel is now in administration as workers fight for their entitlements.

Mr Palmer’s resignation would force a by-election that would likely be won by the Liberal National Party’s Ted O’Brien, who narrowly lost to the businessman at the 2013 election.

A Turnbull government frontbencher has urged Mr Palmer to resign before parliament resumes next week, following revelations the Fairfax MP used the alias Terry Smith to run his troubled refinery.

The Australian today revealed that Mr Palmer used the alias to approve expenditure when he was not formally registered as a director of the company, adding weight to the possibility that he acted as a “shadow director” and could face personal liability for any of QNI debts or legal breaches.

There are separately concerns that QNI – the company put into voluntary administration last week – may be a shell company that does not actually own the refinery and could leave creditors short-changed in its collapse.

Assistant Science Minister Karen Andrews today said Mr Palmer faced a “fulltime job” of ensuring employees received their rightful entitlements and found security of employment into the future.

“I think he should resign and he should resign before parliament resumes next week. He has major responsibilities at Queensland Nickel or whatever the entity or entities are,” Ms Andrews, a Queensland MP, told Sky News.

“He has a responsibility to those workers to make sure he is doing everything that he can.”

The Australian understands QNI’s administrator, FTI Consulting, has been told by staff to look into the owner of the “Terry Smith” email address, emails from which have been signed “Clive Palmer”.

Karen Andrews: “I think he should resign”

Mr Palmer bought the refinery from BHP in 2009 and has been its sole shareholder — through a network of companies — since. However, since his election as the representative for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax, he has regularly stated he was a politician, not a businessman.

As recently as Friday, Mr Palmer told the Sunshine Coast Daily he kept himself separate from the running of QNI, despite being the company’s owner.

Insolvency lawyer Beau Deleuil, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, has raised concerns that although QNI operates the Townsville refinery, it does not appear to own any of the refinery assets.

“When things are going well, everyone gets paid and no one’s the wiser. The money flows out to the asset owning company, while the operating entity retains just enough to pay its debts,” he told Fairfax Media.

“But when things go badly, and creditors aren’t getting paid, the retained profits and the major assets are all protected in a separate entity, and the creditors are left out in the cold. It’s not supersophisticated, but it generally works.”

Labor’s employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said the Turnbull government must act to create new jobs in the region and ensure axed workers get their entitlements if Queensland Nickel winds up bankrupt or in liquidation.

He said the coalition had tried to repeal Labor’s entitlement guarantee scheme to ensure such workers get their money when companies fold and can’t pay.

“We stopped it in the Senate,” he told reporters after meeting with axed nickel workers in Townsville on Monday.

“If workers were like a drowning man, you wouldn’t want the Liberal Party to be the lifesaver because they are the last ones to move.” He called on the prime minister to bring forward upgrades to the Bruce Highway to create new jobs and match Labor’s promise to build a new stadium in Townsville.

He declined to say if he believed Mr Palmer should quit parliament.

Mr O’Connor said it was up to the corporate regulator to form a view about the way Queensland Nickel had been run.

“If a person has broken the law, for example, then they should be met with the full force of the law. It’s entirely up to regulators and courts of law to determine the wrongdoing of others.”

Additional reporting: AAP