Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

According to The Australian newspaper on Saturday, Clive Palmer's United Australia Party has already spent $400,000 on advertising in the Queensland state election, dwarfing other parties, just as it did in the federal election. Just like in the federal election, the Palmer advertisements are already full of lies. The grotesque lie of a death tax is back, just like it was at the federal election, this time with Clive Palmer inventing a fraudulent 20 per cent Labor death tax in the Queensland election. He's made this lie particularly grotesque by linking it to the voluntary assisted dying legislation. These lies and preference swaps between Palmer and the LNP are part of a coalition of convenience between Palmer and the conservatives.

If Mr Palmer is going to spend millions of dollars in lying, the least I can do is spend five minutes telling the truth about him. Truth No 1: more than 800 workers at Queensland Nickel lost their jobs when the company went into receivership. Queensland Nickel was owned by Mineralogy, which is owned in turn by Clive Palmer and is the company which is largely bankrolling Clive Palmer's United Australia Party. These workers were not paid entitlements and the Commonwealth government had to stump up $66 million to see them partially paid. That is taxpayers' money which companies owned by Clive Palmer should have paid. It is wage theft by companies controlled by Clive Palmer.

Truth No. 2: in the days before Queensland Nickel went into receivership, it made a mysterious payment of $135 million to a $2 company called, ironically enough, China First. This $2 company was controlled by Mr Palmer's wife, Anna Palmer, who is now the deputy leader of Clive Palmer's United Australia Party and their candidate in the marginal Queensland seat of Currumbin. Queensland Nickel couldn't afford to pay its workers' wages, but it could afford to pay $135 million to a company owned by Mrs Anna Palmer days before going into receivership.

Truth No. 3: equally mysteriously, $180 million was transferred to a company called Palmer Investments based in Bulgaria. This transfer was approved by the now deputy leader of Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, the one and the same Mrs Anna Palmer. Truth No. 4: Clive Palmer's nephew and former fellow director of Queensland Nickel, Mr Clive Mensink, has been on the run overseas for years, avoiding arrest warrants in relation to the collapse of Queensland Nickel. Truth No. 5: Clive Palmer has been charged with fraud and breach of director duties in relation to transfers from Mineralogy to the Palmer United Party before the 2013 election.

These are the facts about Clive Palmer. He might not want Queenslanders and Australians to know them, but they will hear them. I haven't gotten to Clive Palmer undermining the public health efforts of the Western Australian government in relation to the Western Australian border, with the support of the Morrison government, or his latest effort to fleece the taxpayers of Western Australia or his spreading of dangerous misinformation in relation to COVID-19. Clive Palmer has been called a serial pest, and he is. But he is so much more than that. His actions, his greed and his grotesque lies have caused heartache for hundreds of good Australian workers—workers in Townsville and workers throughout Queensland who have been ripped off. His actions and his greed have seen the taxpayer stump up for his debts, debts that he should have paid. So every taxpayer in Australia has been ripped off by Clive Palmer. Clive Palmer should be ashamed to show his face in parliament. He should not be spending millions of dollars trying to take votes away from the Labor Party and influence elections like with the $60 million he spent telling lies in the last federal election.

The behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you accept, and the LNP does more than walk past Mr Palmer's behaviour; it embraces his behaviour with dodgy, disreputable and disgusting preference deals. The LNP in Queensland putting Clive Palmer's United Australia Party before the Labor Party and other parties is a disgusting example, but it is just the latest. Mr Morrison engaged in preference deals with Mr Palmer as well. Scott Morrison and Deb Frecklington don't condemn Clive Palmer's behaviour; they reward it. They reward it with their preferences because it suits them as part of their grubby political games. They should hang their heads in shame, just as Clive Palmer should hang his head in shame and just as people involved in Clive Palmer's United Australia Party should hang their heads in shame.

Mr Palmer has no place in Australian politics. He should pay his debts to the Australian taxpayer, he should pay his debts to his workers in Queensland and he should not be engaging in spreading misinformation based on those debts that he has engaged in the past. Clive Palmer is an absolute disgrace to this country.