Tonight, ABC‘s Four Corners is airing an episode about the rise and fall of the “mercurial” Clive Palmer, and he’s losing his fucking mind.
The program focuses heavily on the now closed Queensland Nickel refinery, and investigates whether Palmer was acting as a shadow director through his email alias ‘Terry Smith‘, the account from which millions of dollars worth of purchases were approved / rejected *after* he claimed to have retired from business in 2013.
#FourCorners contains a number of factual errors & if broadcast will cause substantial damage to me. #FourCorners needs to be corrected.
— Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) April 10, 2016
Through a spokesperson, Palmer said:
“In relation to Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd, the facts are that Queensland Nickel has never given loans to Mr Palmer or his companies. Any reports to the contrary are false and have been written to cause malicious damage.
“Queensland Nickel employees who were first made redundant were paid two weeks wages in advance while their redundancy and entitlements were being determined.
“The administrator made the decision not to pay entitlements, not Mr Palmer or any person working for Queensland Nickel. The administrator continued to trade the company for over a month following that decision with Queensland Nickel funds.”
He’s also positively rancid that Four Corners isn’t taking him up on his offer of a live interview while the episode is being broadcast, which is perhaps because – and we’re just spitballing here – it’s not a live program.
“Such refusal merely confirms Four Corners’ lack of willingness to deal with the truth and its determination to run a biased broadcast not in accordance with its charter,” he said.
“Mr Palmer, like any Australian, should be entitled to a fair go.” Yikes.
The thing is, though, Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour is *also* on Twitter, and she’s very quickly shut down any accusations of not being fair to the businessman-cum-federal politician:
4Corners was very keen to interview you @CliveFPalmer @PalmerUtdParty but as you know we don’t do live IVs. #4corners #Palmer #auspol
— Sally Neighbour (@neighbour_s) April 9, 2016
More to the point, @CliveFPalmer, why won’t you answer the questions we asked you? #4Corners #Palmer #auspol
— Sally Neighbour (@neighbour_s) April 9, 2016
Fair go @CliveFPalmer! You can’t refuse repeated IV requests, decline to answer Qs, then complain about not getting a fair go #4Corners
— Sally Neighbour (@neighbour_s) April 10, 2016
Feel free to read his full Facebook post below, but tbh, you might as well just catch the full(er) story from Four Corners tonight at 8:30pm.
Media statement Four Corners Needs to Give Clive Palmer a Fair Go Clive Palmer has offered to appear on Four Corners…
Posted by Clive Palmer on Saturday, 9 April 2016
Photo: Getty / Stefan Postles.
