Pared-down Clive Palmer makes new court bid over liquidation

The former federal MP spruiked his weight loss when he unexpectedly turned up at the Queensland Supreme Court.

Clive Palmer arrives at the Brisbane Court complex yesterday, ‘42kg trimmer since his political retirement’.

Clive Palmer’s nephew Clive Mensink might be gallivanting overseas, but he’s still been able to slap a Federal Court lawsuit on the liquidators of the collapsed Queensland Nickel.

Mr Palmer yesterday unexpectedly turned up at the Queensland Supreme Court to represent himself in a multi-fronted legal war with liquidators over the $300 million failure of his Townsville refinery company.

The former federal MP spruiked his weight loss (42kg since his political retirement), insisted he would reopen the north Queensland refinery next year, and said he had no idea when his nephew would return. “I don’t look after his life,” he said.

Mr Mensink was Queensland Nickel’s sole director when it sacked 237 workers and went into voluntary administration in January. He has been overseas for months, and liquidators have been unable to serve him to appear at public examinations into the corporate failure.

Mr Palmer said Mr Mensink had done nothing wrong by leaving Australia on a long-planned holiday (which, at last update, had included a cruise “up near the Arctic”) because liquidators had not served him.

Late last week, lawyers instructed by Mr Mensink and former Queensland Nickel chief financial officer Daren Wolfe ­applied to the Federal Court to remove general purpose liquidators FTI Consulting, bolstered by a 1000-page affidavit.

The affidavit, sworn by a solicitor whose speciality is migration law, says instructions had been received from Mr Mensink and Mr Wolfe.

Asked outside court how Mr Mensink had managed to co-­ordinate complex litigation while on holiday, Mr Palmer said his nephew was a “normal citizen” unlike himself. “He normally does that through the normal process of instructing solicitors,” Mr Palmer said.

“Unlike me, he acts like a normal citizen, he goes to a solicitor, who goes to a barrister and that’s what they do.”

Barrister Andrew Crowe QC, for liquidators FTI Consulting, has described Mr Mensink’s case as a “mirror” of a lawsuit brought by Mr Palmer and a slew of his companies in the Queensland Supreme Court to remove the liquidators, and says it should be transferred to the same court.

Mr Palmer yesterday lost a bid to have separate legal representation from five of his companies.