The Palmer United party leader, Clive Palmer, has announced plans to host an unofficial “world climate change convention” at his Sunshine Coast resort, but would not reveal who would attend.

The 17 November event will be held one day after the G20 meeting of world leaders in Brisbane, and just two weeks before a 12-day climate change conference in Lima, Peru, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Palmer’s event is scheduled to occur less than a month after another official UN event: a five-day climate change conference in Bonn, Germany.

Amid calls for climate change to be added to the G20 agenda, Palmer suggested that “major international leaders” would be coming to his Palmer Coolum Resort “to draw attention to climate change, what can be done about it”.

“It will be held the day after the last day of the G20 in Brisbane and it will be keeping attention on the need to have a global emissions trading scheme,” Palmer said on Monday.

“Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be making announcements of the world leaders who will be coming to attend this conference just after the G20. That’s an exciting thing for the Sunshine Coast.”

Palmer provided no details about people likely to attend his event.

“Well, we’ll be having ex-presidents of other countries – I can’t tell you who they are because their own countries have got to announce them – former presidents and former heads of state of other countries,” 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/clive-palmer-to-host-world-climate-change-convention-at-his-resort?cmp=soc_568

I know the heading in ambiguous... you can read EITHER: unofficial round of golf for ex-presidents, with dinosaurs... OR unofficial round of golf, for ex-presidents with dinosaurs... TAKE YOUR PICK...

Federal Cabinet ministers and the West Australian Premier have lined up to condemn Clive Palmer over a stinging verbal attack on China.

On ABC's Q&A program last night Mr Palmer labelled the Chinese government "bastards" and "mongrels" who "shoot their own people".

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Fairfax Radio she planned to tell the Chinese embassy the Australian Parliament does not share Mr Palmer's "abusive" views.

But PUP senator Jacqui Lambie defended her leader, saying it would be "delusional" to "ignores the threat of a Chinese Communist invasion".

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/government-extending-olive-branch-to-china-after-palmer-tirade/5681118

The Chinese embassy in Australia has labelled Clive Palmer's stinging verbal attack on the country as "absurd" and "irresponsible".

On the ABC's Q&A program last night, Mr Palmer called the Chinese government "bastards" and "mongrels" and claimed they "shoot their own people".

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy told the ABC the comments "were full of ignorance and prejudice".

"We believe that a sound China-Australian relationship serves the fundamental interests of both countries. It is and will always be supported by the two peoples," the spokesman added.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/government-extending-olive-branch-to-china-after-palmer-tirade/5681118

On last night’s fine, rare, important ABC Q&A, it became plain why Clive Palmer is the best political TV interviewee presently on our screens.

He understands what the Liberals have long understood — that to win you must use crime, death, numbers, and love of country in your cause, and do it plainly and succinctly. That he is more plain and succinct than any politician now performing is due partly to his training in what I would suspect is the Dale Carnegie school of public speaking, partly his own rogue affable native talent. But the ingredients of his method are worth noting.

Like the Liberals, he brings death into it. He says the six-month no-pay punishment of the unemployed will cause youth suicide. There is no argument against this — just as there is no argument against the suggestion that drowning at sea is a misfortune we should try to prevent, a highly successful tory argument Labor got sucked into, for want of an alternative.

He also uses numbers plainly and plentifully, the way the tories do.

The money we are spending is a billion dollars a month on the interest of what we owe and this is too much, they argue. Clive says we are spending 12 per cent of our national income dealing with debt and the OECD average is 73 per cent, so we aren’t in any trouble, and this is even more powerful.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/qa-and-the-palmer-method,6790

Clive Palmer is under fire again, this time for failing to turn up to any hearings of the Standing Committee on Economics, which he is required to attend because he is a member.

Mr Palmer was the only one of the 10-member panel who failed to show up at today’s hearing despite it being held in Brisbane, in his home state.

The two supplementary members, Andrew Leigh and Tony Smith, managed to attend.

The economics committee is considered one of the pre-eminent parliamentary committees, with oversight of the Reserve Bank and the banking regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

The committee is also holding a high-profile inquiry into foreign investment in residential real estate.

Today the committee, chaired by Kelly O'Dwyer, was grilling the governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, on the outlook of the economy, including the effects of the Budget impasse.

Mr Palmer failed to appear at any of the other seven public hearings the committee had previously held, which included a review into the banking regulator.

His failure to show up at any of those hearings led one person close to the committee to believe he was no longer on it.

The ABC understands some committee members are angered by Mr Palmer's disregard for his responsibilities.

One said: "It is unprecedented that someone doesn't show."

READ MORE: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/clive-palmer-under-fire-over-economics-committee/5684320

I would not be surprised if Clive has gone to play politics by himself, in his own private sand box...

The major political parties came together this week to agree on how dreadful Clive Palmer is. That's pretty funny because they are denouncing their own creation.

It was the main parties that made Clive Palmer a political force. It is the main parties that give him his position controlling the balance of power in the Senate. The main parties also have the option of sidelining him. They can't get him out of Parliament, but they can make him irrelevant. 

Now that it's clear that he's a national problem, they should have a good, hard look at it. It can work for them too.

The Palmer United Party thrived at its first electoral attempt because of the people's despair at the alternatives.

"I think Tony Abbott is a giant wanker," said Rose, a Brisbane woman in her 30s, at an Ipsos Research focus group that I observed during the election campaign last year.

"I think Kevin Rudd is a bigger wanker," rejoined the woman sitting next to her, Nikki, around the same age. "His own party doesn't want to work with him."

Neither leader was liked or appreciated. As John, a Brisbane man in his 40s, put it, the choice was a matter of "who you hate least". 

The Greens were widely regarded as too radical to consider and failed utterly to win a second glance. In the only focus group to mention the party, even the bloke who raised the subject couldn't name the party's leader: "It's some lady", was his best effort. 

The leaders were the ugly tips of a dismal iceberg of cold cynicism. What the people saw was fratricidal Labor with its recurring blur of knives and toxins, a thuggish Coalition with its oppositionist fisticuffs and moronic slogans, and a faceless collective of unhinged Greens fringe-dwellers.

See toon at top...

Clive Palmer has offered a "genuine and sincere" apology over his remarks last week that described the Chinese government as "mongrels" that "shoot their own people".

The comments were widely condemned, including by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who branded them "over the top, shrill and wrong".

In a letter to the Chinese ambassador released by Mr Palmer's office this morning, he wrote: "I most sincerely apologise for any insult to the Chinese people caused by any of the language I used.

"I regret any hurt or anguish such comments may have caused any party and I look forward to greater understanding for peace and cooperation in the future.

"I now come to the realisation that what I said on Q&A was an insult to Chinese people everywhere and I wish to assure them they have my most genuine and sincere apology, that I am sorry that I said the things I said on the program.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-26/clive-palmer-letter-of-apology-to-chinese-ambassador-australia/5696494

Shooting their mouth off without or with reasons in a favourite pass-time of the Orstralyan politician, from Tony Abbott to Julie Bishop, via Christopher Kidney-Pyne... No-one is immune. Usually they mean the stupid things they say, until someone points out that they are idiots. From then on, it's back-pedalling at a rate of knots, but back-pedalling into your own shit is not pretty, and rarely done with proper realisation of the stupidity of what they idiotically thought in the first place... They often only apologise for having said what they really think... which is still crap haunting their pigeon loft...

The Senate has voted to repeal the mining tax after the Federal Government and the Palmer United Party (PUP) struck a deal to keep the schoolkids bonus until after the next election.

But the agreement also further delays superannuation increases for Australian workers, putting them on hold until 2021.

PUP had insisted it would not back the mining tax repeal unless the schoolkids bonus and other assistance measures were retained.

The legislation passed the Upper House this afternoon and will now head back to the House of Representatives, where its passage is guaranteed.

Earlier Finance Minister Mathias Cormann announced the breakthrough in the Senate.

"I am pleased to announce that the Government has received indications from a majority of senators in this chamber that they will support our mining tax repeal package subject to amendments which are currently being circulated in the chamber," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-02/government-strikes-mining-tax-deal-with-palmer-united-party/5713116

Clive Palmer has accused fellow Palmer United party (PUP) member Jacqui Lambie of being an agent for other political parties, as a the acrimonious split within the party escalates.

Palmer told ABC radio Lambie was sent to “infiltrate” the PUP, a claim Lambie has shrugged off.

“When you start a new party like our party, the established parties and others try to wreck it,” Palmer said. “She’s been sent in there by someone to cause trouble and I think that’s the reality of it.

“You’ve only got to look at what happened to all the other parties, the tactics that were used to discredit them ... and there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t happen to our party,” he said.

Palmer went on to reiterate his concerns on Channel Seven on Monday morning, accusing the senator of being “controlled by lobbyists” and seeking to “blackmail the government”.

Lambie laughed off the allegations.

“Oh, next I’ll be a Russian agent. Yeah, no, I doubt it.”

“It’s a distraction,” Lambie said.

“Today I’m certainly a member of the Palmer United Party,” she said on Sunday. But “tomorrow’s a new beginning”.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/24/clive-palmer-accuses-jacqui-lambie-infiltrate-pup

---------------------

Of course Palmer has double-crossed the Australian public by siding with Tony Abbott on too many occasions after having said "NEVER"... the Lambie split would be just desserts for the big guy who talks double-bluff crap with a debonaire demeanour as if "he was one of us"... HE IS NOT. He is an enormous rich guy (supposedly rich) with his own personal jet (we all have one of those, don't we?) who produces nickel and cobalt in Townsville — and who loves and mines COAL. Tony Abbott LOVES COAL...  Please add two and two here, and see the secret love between Tony and Palmer despite the amorous tiffs played out to a gullible public...

She may not know it, Lambie might be doing us a favour... We may not know how she's going to vote on some issues, but NOW THE REAL GAME IS ON, BECAUSE PALMER HAS LOST CONTROL OF THE SENATE... He won't able to do his dirty little deals with Tony.

See toon at top...