COAL HARD CASH
Taxpayers may fund new power generator in North
TAXPAYERS may fund and operate a new coal- fired power station in North Queensland, the Turnbull Government has for the first time declared.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce yesterday told the ABC’s Insiders the Coalition would not rule the idea out as concerns about reliable, affordable power escalate.
Businesses, especially in the North, have suffered with spiralling energy bills, with businesses laying off staff because of increasing costs.
But Herbert MP Cathy O’Toole said there was nothing new in Mr Joyce’s claims.
“The Turnbull Government has no energy plan at all,” she said. “We need to get a detailed plan … we have lots of opportunity for alternative energy in the North and lots of opportunity to create jobs.”
CLIVE Palmer has splashed out on a luxury Mediterranean cruise — just a month after facing a court clutching a sick bag and breathing device. The former mining magnate had told the Federal Court, where liquidators were pursuing $ 66 million in entitlements for workers sacked from his Queensland Nickel refinery in Townsville, that he was suffering pancreatitis and had earlier undergone a gall bladder operation. But, having dropped from 153kg to 95kg, Mr Palmer looked a picture of health as he boarded the luxury cruise ship in Spain with his wife Anna and daughter Emily.
Mr Palmer and a select group of more than 20 family, close friends and employees embarked from the Port of Barcelona on a 24- day European cruise on Friday.
Tickets are understood to cost about $ 10,000 each.
One of the cruise attendees is the adult son of former Queensland Nickel managing director Clive Mensink, who has been abroad for a year despite being the subject of two arrest warrants. Insiders speculate Mr Mensink Sr will join the cruise party at some point to see his son.
The 2000- person cruise ship boasts a spa, basketball court, restaurants, swimming pools and a fitness centre. The itinerary takes in Gibraltar, Majorca, Sicily, Malta, Cro- atia, Greece and Dubrovnik.
The Federal Government is seeking to recover $ 66 million that it forked out for the entitlements of more than 750 workers sacked from the collapsed Queensland Nickel refinery. The company, led by Mr Mensink, went into voluntary administration last January, and then liquidation, with creditors owed $ 300 million.
In May, when Mr Palmer faced a grilling in court over the collapse of Queensland Nickel, he appeared with a sick- bag, stumbled over answers, suffered memory loss and said his evidence may be unreliable because of the side- effects of morphine he was taking for pancreatitis.
Mr Palmer has denied any responsibility for the workers or creditors, saying he retired from business activities in 2013 when he was elected to Federal Parliament. He has said Mr Mensink, as the refinery operator’s director, is the person obligated to answer questions.
Mr Mensink has spent the past 12 months travelling the world, making him unavailable to be questioned in the Federal Court – which has issued two warrants for his arrest. Mr Mensink has appealed against these warrants but did not turn up to the May 10 hearing.
In a second court case in the WA Supreme Court, Mr Palmer was set to face crossexamination by lawyers for the Chinese state- owned investment conglomerate Citic but removed himself from the witness list on Thursday. The trial is over a multi- billiondollar royalties dispute regarding Citic’s $ 12 billion Sino Iron mine in the Pilbara.