Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel refinery paid golf course bills

Clive Palmer’s cash-strapped Queens­land Nickel was paying bills for up to five of the tycoon’s golf courses.

Queensland Nickel's managing director of operations, Ian Ferguson, leaves the Federal Court in Brisbane yesterday. Picture: AAP

Clive Palmer’s cash-strapped Queens­land Nickel was paying bills for up to five of the tycoon’s golf courses and property developments in the months before it collapsed and cost nearly 800 jobs.

Former QN general manager of operations Ian Ferguson yesterday told the Federal Court that cash was channelled out of the ­refinery and into unrelated ­Pal­mer projects.

Mr Ferguson was hand-picked by Mr Palmer in March 2012 as the Townsville refinery’s commercial director and promoted to general manager of operations within weeks, despite admitting he didn’t understand how the refinery’s ­operations worked for at least a year.

He said Mr Palmer made him swear a “blood oath” that he would focus on the refinery and not real estate, but soon the ­resources mogul was “bouncing” property development ideas off his old friend, who gave Mr Palmer his first job as a Gold Coast real estate salesman in the 1970s.

The court heard the pair had an “oral agreement” that Mr Ferguson would be paid by QN and be the managing director of operations, but would scope out separate development opportunities such as golf courses and cattle ­stations.

Mr Ferguson was paid by QN for the side projects, and conducted the work when he would have otherwise been at the refinery.

The court heard he scouted the Sea Temple golf course at Port Douglas for Mr Palmer in 2012 ­before the then Palmer United Party leader snapped it up, and came up with a “great idea” to convert Avica, a 100ha parcel of Gold Coast land owned by Mr Palmer, into a golf course and residential development.

Mr Ferguson sent an email to Mr Palmer’s “Terry Smith” alias email address early last year, with three engineering quotes for the “Palmer Avica Resort Strategy”.

He asked which cost centre he should use for the project, and for three other Palmer-owned golf courses in southeast Queensland: Colonial, Robina Woods and Coolum.

In the email, Mr Ferguson pointed out that invoices for the Palmer Sea Reef golf course in Port Douglas were already being paid through a QN cost centre.

Barrister Catherine Muir, for special purpose liquidators PPB Advisory, asked Mr Ferguson: “At Clive’s discretion, whatever he wanted paid through Queensland Nickel, or the (QN) joint venture accounts, was channelled through those accounts?” Mr Ferguson replied: “In that instance, yes.”

He said bills for all five golf course developments were being sent to QN last year, and conceded he had asked QN’s finance and tax officer to prepare cashflow statements for the “Palmer developments”, even though they had nothing to do with the refinery.

Despite being shown several examples of golf course invoices being sent to QN for payment, Mr Ferguson said it was possible they were not all paid by the refinery company.

Ms Muir: “Was QN paying for Palmer Development projects?”

Mr Ferguson: “I just said I don’t know”. He later said he was “sure” at least some were paid by QN.

“It’s Clive’s money,” Mr ­Ferguson said.

QN collapsed into liquidation in April under the weight of up to $300 million in debts, after being placed in voluntary adminis­tration in January. Nearly 800 workers lost their jobs, with taxpayers picking up the bill for ­almost $70m in redundancy entitlements.

The public examination into the corporate collapse continues in Brisbane today. Mr Palmer is scheduled to testify ­tomorrow.