Palmer hits back at Abbott over ‘ dud’ comments
CLIVE Palmer has threatened to sue Tony Abbott, after the former Prime Minister accused him of “dudding workers” and “essentially buying” his way back into politics.
The comments sparked Mr Palmer to call for Mr Abbott to resign, threaten to sue him and deny the claims.
It comes as both major political parties have fears his big spending advertising campaign will have an impact at the next election, despite his original foray into politics crashing in 2016.
Both major both parties believe high unemployment in Townsville has created an environment Mr Palmer can use to gar- ner support, as he promises to reopen the refinery and makes donations to local community groups.
Mr Abbott yesterday said Mr Palmer, who has said he will contest the seat of Herbert, would bring back “spiv politics”.
“The money that Clive Palmer is once more getting from the Chinese ( Citic Pacific) from the iron ore mine in Western Australia, that should be going back to refund the workers of Townsville that he dudded,” Mr Abbott said.
“That’s where their money should be going, it shouldn’t be going to self- promoting advertising.
“If you want to see decent politics and not spiv politics, ignore the advertise- ments that Clive Palmer is running with money that really belongs to the workers of the nickel refinery who were dudded of their entitlements.”
Asked about Mr Abbott’s comment, Mr Palmer said: “Could you publish that, then we can sue him for defamation.
“That’s not true, no one was dudded by me,” he said, blaming Queensland Nickel’s administrator which had refused to transfer staff to his other companies.
“Mr Abbott should retire from Parliament. There’s too many former prime ministers in there. We don’t know who is running the place,” he said.
He said it was his party’s money, not his own, which funded the advertisements.