Malcolm Turnbull asked to save jobs at Palmer nickel refinery

An LNP MP has floated a contingency plan with Malcolm Turnbull should Clive Palmer’s nickel refinery fail.

Clive Palmer has asked for help in saving his troubled Queensland Nickel refinery. Picture: Peter Wallis

The Liberal National Party MP whose electorate is home to Clive Palmer’s troubled Queensland Nickel refinery has floated a contingency plan with Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, “should the worst happen”.

Herbert MP Ewen Jones’s ­approach emerged as 800 workers at the Yabulu site, just outside Townsville, receive their last certain pay cheque today, having been given no indication about whether they will still have a job next month.

Mr Jones said yesterday that while he understood Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt’s decision not to bow to Mr Palmer’s request for a $40 million taxpayer-funded bailout, he believed there was scope for federal intervention if the company was headed for ­insolvency.

He said he had made it clear in talks with the Prime Minister and Treasurer that were the company to go into administration, he hoped the government could “still play a role” in saving it, even if it meant going guarantor while the future viability of the company was determined.

He envisioned a scenario in which Canberra was “given a say” in who was appointed as administrator and, in turn, acts as a “protector” of that administrator, allowing the company to continue trading during a search for a buyer.

Mr Jones said that while there was no doubt Mr Palmer was ­responsible for the position the company was in, he was not “the villain” he was being made out to be. He was last night “still playing phone tag” with Mr Palmer but he was not aware anyone at the federal level had been approached by the self-described billionaire about the possibility of financial support.

He said he had not received any assurances from Mr Turnbull, Mr Morrison or anyone else on his side of government that such a ­request would be entertained but he still felt it was important to “have a back-up plan”.

“I understand there are people out there whose businesses are going bankrupt every day and no one is bailing them out but we do have a situation where we have a business that is unique, a business that employs 800 people and to which at least another 1500 owe the majority of their income and I think it’s worth the federal government being in that space,” Mr Jones said.

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill was “heartened to hear” a federal option would be explored if the company were to collapse.

She said it was her understanding that employees had been told today’s pay would be in their ­accounts but it was “really a question of what happens after that’’.

“It is absolutely cruel ... at this time of year and to let it go on for so long,” she said.

“We need the doors to stay open ... it is the economic base of the city and I would like to think that if there is an issue this serious that the company would be upfront about it then try to deal with it.’’