Clive Palmer’s workers need answers, says Bill Shorten

Bill Shorten has pushed for ‘full transparency’ of the finances of Clive Palmer’s struggling Queensland Nickel refinery.

Clive Palmer in Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Bill Shorten has pushed for “full transparency” of the finances of Clive Palmer’s struggling Queensland Nickel refinery as 800 workers brace for news about the company’s future.

While the Opposition Leader insisted he did not make a practice of talking about businesses and their trading habits, he said there needed to be “a lot more financial information out in the public marketplace” for the sake of the workers employed at the Yabulu refinery near Townsville.

“I agree that for the town who rely upon his nickel refinery, for taxpayers who are being asked to support a company regardless of whoever owns it, I think there needs to be a lot more financial information out in the public marketplace before it’s possible to make commitments about government or anyone else,” Mr Shorten said.

“There’s a lot of Australians facing this Christmas concerned about what will happen to their jobs, concerned about the price of everything and when you’ve got individual companies like Palmer’s organisation and companies seeking the assistance of government, I think there needs to be full transparency of financial arrangements.”

It comes amid rumours of an “imminent” closure announcement and as Katter’s Australian Party demanded government intervention in the refinery, saying state action was a “matter of urgency” for Townsville.

“This is not only a kick in the guts for the workers and families, this will also hit the whole region,” KAP MP Shane Knuth said. “The 800 employees and the refinery itself pay GST and taxes where both state and federal government benefit, yet in their time of need the government turns away.

“The peripheral economic activity produced by the refinery will cease to exist if something isn’t done now.”

The Queensland government last week rejected a request to act as guarantor for a $35 million bank overdraft for Mr Palmer’s refinery and appealed to the Palmer United Party leader to state his honest intentions for the company.

Rob Katter, another KAP MP and son of the party’s founder Bob Katter, who sits on the crossbench with Mr Palmer in the House of Representatives, said politics and personalities were “clouding the severity of the situation”.