Clive Palmer tells the sacked workers at his Queensland nickel refinery what he really thinks

CLIVE Palmer told sacked workers at his Queensland nickel refinery what he really thinks — and declined to rule out running for the Senate.

CLIVE Palmer has left the door open for a possible tilt at a Senate seat in order to stay in federal parliament.

When asked if poor polling in his seat of Fairfax had prompted plans to move to the Senate, the billionaire businessman did not rule out a move to the upper house.

Appearing on ABC’s Insiders this morning, the embattled member for Fairfax said he would “have a look at that when an election is called”.

“At this stage the Prime Minister hasn’t called an election,” Mr Palmer said.

“It’d have to be if I got endorsed by my party, Barry, and I don’t whether they would — with all the bad publicity I've had they might say ‘gee, we don’t want Clive, he’s the last person we want, someone that would actually stand up to the government, that’s got rid of the 2014 budget, that stood up to Tony Abbott so we stopped the co-payment, stopped the changes to education, saved the Climate Change Authority, saved the Clean Energy Corporation ...”

Asked if it was a mistake for “someone with your business interests” to go into politics, because of “conflicts of interest”, Mr Palmer said that “people like me in business shouldn’t be stopped from serving the community.”

.@CliveFPalmer not ruling out switching to the Senate at the next election. #insiders #auspol @abcnews https://t.co/pbwBVB0Zqs

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) March 12, 2016

The comments wrapped up an interview in which Mr Palmer denied responsibility for the loss of 550 jobs at his Townsville nickel refinery after the collapse of his company Queensland Nickel.

“They’ve had jobs for seven years that they wouldn’t have had,” he added, noting that employees were given free holidays and Mercedes Benz cars.

He singled out the administrators called in when Queensland Nickel was placed into voluntary administration in January, for freezing the company’s accounts — as tends to happen when a company has gone bust.

And he alleged a conspiracy by the Queensland Government, which has not approved including a major hazard licence for Mr Palmer’s new venture Queensland Nickel Sales after it took over the Yabulu refinery last Monday, claiming that the new company had “met our side of it”.

“Attacks on me are purely motivated by political reasons,” Mr Palmer said. “It shouldn’t be about ‘Get Clive Palmer’.”

Mr Palmer has been under pressure to explain his plan and guarantee the workers’ entitlements from state and federal MPs, including local Liberal National Party MP Ewen Jones, who on Saturday labelled the management of the operation as “piss poor”.

The fate of the refinery and its workers hangs in the balance. Picture: Andrew Rankin

He denied responsibility for the loss of 550 jobs, saying: “Well, it’s a great tragedy. And of course we didn’t let these workers go ... The administrator decided to close up shop, and in doing so freezed the bank accounts of the business, to make them not available for ongoing operations, which is I think a bad thing — ”

Host Barry Cassidy interjected: “So is there any prospect of them being rehired?

Mr Palmer replied: “Well, we have to look at — but I can just say, as an investor, putting all of this aside, I don’t think I’m prepared to put millions of dollars in there unless it’s clear, ah, guidelines from Queensland government that they’ll behave reasonably.”

Mr Palmer indicated that it would be some time before the workers would know their fate, despite having vowed on Friday to rehire them to work for Queensland Nickel Sales.

“The administrator cancelled the ore so the refinery, it will take at least eight weeks to get ore on the ground where the refinery could operate,” Mr Palmer said.

“In that time, we’ve got to work hard to see if the government really wants us to be in Queensland. If they don’t want us to be there, I won’t be putting more tens of millions of dollars and make that available just to lose that money.”

A state government assessment has put the cost of cleaning up the nickel plant, if Mr Palmer’s business cannot be saved or sold, at $100 million, The Guardian reported.

Its waste ponds allegedly leaked toxic waste into Great Barrier Reef waters during Cyclone Ita in 2014, an incident that is the subject of an environment breach charge, which the company indicated it would defend.

Mr Palmer declined to reveal the source of the $23 million loan he secured to keep the nickel refinery operating, or confirm reports that it was secured against his personal assets.

“I’ll do whatever’s required,” he said.

He defended Queensland Nickel’s $5.9 million donation to his Palmer United Party in the 2014-15 financial year, just months before the company went begging to the State Government for help getting a bailout loan.

“Those donations were made before December 2015,” Mr Palmer said, stating that the company had a robust profit forecast at that stage, and blaming the subsequent fall in the nickel price.

— With AAP

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Originally published as Clive Palmer tells the sacked workers at his Queensland nickel refinery what he really thinks