Not just a nickel or a dime, a $43m pay day for Clive Palmer

Clive Palmer started whisking huge sums of cash from the coffers of Queensland Nickel one day in late November, 2012.

 

Clive Palmer started whisking huge sums of cash from the coffers of Queensland Nickel one day in late November, 2012.

By the end of that day, Thursday, November 29, a total of $42,689,601 had been siphoned off. It was the biggest outflow of cash in one day in the nickel refinery’s torrid history.

In its damning report, the administrators of Queensland Nickel list where the sums of money went.

One account, SCI Le Coeur de L Ocean, which Palmer’s parliamentary register lists as being in French Polynesia and belonging to his wife, Anna Palmer, received a deposit of $US15 million.

Anna’s father, Alexandar Sokolov, suddenly found himself $US8m richer, at least on paper. Another chunk of $US15m went into Palmer’s personal accounts. A person called Zhenghong Zang received $4m, then a $500,000 top-up. Bednova Evgenia, believed to be one of Anna Palmer’s Bulgarian-born relatives, received $959,728.

The motives for the handful of massive withdrawals in one day have been a mystery.

The Australian can reveal, however, that Palmer was in a panic and highly agitated when he instructed the transfers on November 29, 2012.

A confidante recalled him being “absolutely paranoid — more so than usual” around this time because of something he believed he had discovered.

But what was it? Palmer believed that the Queensland government, led by then premier Campbell Newman, was secretly planning to imprison him and imminently confiscate his assets.

As Palmer has also described ASIO tapping his telephones, and the CIA sponsoring the Greens in Queensland, his theory was out there.

But as is his habit, Palmer went straight onto the offensive at an impromptu media conference to reveal to agog journalists on the morning of November 29, 2012, that he had discovered — through supposedly highly placed sources — of the dastardly plot to strip him of his wealth and throw him in the slammer.

“Around about three weeks ago we got evidence put to us, that I didn’t believe to be true, that people within the government and senior figures within the public service were conspiring to put me in jail, and to confiscate all the assets I have,” he told journalists, including The Australian’s Andrew Fraser, that day.

“I naturally enough at the time didn’t put any credence on this matter.

“However over the last two to three weeks substantial evidence has been put forward, and I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no doubt this is true.

“I can say some of the logic was that ‘it’s important that you shut Clive up, that he’s not a member of parliament, he doesn’t have commercial interests in Queensland ... and we’ve got to do something to make sure that he’s not a political problem so that we can go forward with our agenda’.

“These are matters of the greatest concern for me and my family and my children.

“It’s also the greatest concern for members of the public, because if they can seek to do this to me, what can they do to you, your children, to the people that live here?”

Along with the November 29 transfers to Palmer and other individuals, three of Palmer’s companies — Mineralogy, Waratah Coal and Cold Mountain Stud — also received $550,000, $200,000 and $50,000 respectively.

“On 29 November, 2012, Mr Palmer instructed QN to transfer a total of $43m to a number of related entities,’’ John Park, of administrators FTI Consulting, reported yesterday in a document that exposes serious alleged offences.

Three-and-a-half years later, the irony is that Palmer’s asset-stripping on that strange November morning is likely to result in him being pursued by liquidators for the funds he took then, and subsequently.

This pending pursuit could see him prosecuted for serious alleged offences, which are outlined in the comprehensive and hard-hitting report by FTI Consulting.

Palmer’s fears were baseless in November 2012.

The government at the time was trying to manage his public outbursts as Liberal National Party backbenchers including Alex Douglas and Carl Judge prepared to abandon Newman and join up with Palmer.

But by the time the curtain comes down on this remarkable Queensland circus, Palmer may turn out to have been prophetic about his fate in a way he did not foresee.