87 Facts About Clive Palmer

Clive Frederick Palmer was born on 26 March 1954 and is an Australian businessman and politician.

Clive Palmer owned Gold Coast United FC from 2008 to 2012.

Clive Palmer created the Clive Palmer United Party in April 2013, winning the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax in the 2013 Australian federal election and sitting as an MP for one term.

In 2018, after formally deregistering the party on 5 May 2017, Clive Palmer revived his party as the United Australia Party, announcing that he would be running candidates for all 151 seats in the House of Representatives and later that he would run as a Queensland candidate for the Senate.

Clive Palmer has frequently been involved in legal cases relating to his businesses, and once listed litigation as one of his hobbies in Who's Who.

Clive Palmer has argued that the litigation he is involved in is justified as it rights wrongs.

Clive Palmer attempted to use litigation as a gag order against his workers in his defunct Queensland Nickel refinery, promising to pay the money he owed them only if they agreed not to make any disparaging comments about him.

Clive Palmer was born on 26 March 1954 at Footscray Hospital in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.

Clive Palmer spent his early years in the nearby suburb of Williamstown.

Clive Palmer's family moved to Queensland in 1963, and Palmer was largely raised on the Gold Coast, where he attended Aquinas College and Southport State High School, although he attended Toowoomba Grammar School for a short time.

Clive Palmer's father, George, was a travel agent, and the family travelled the world extensively.

George Clive Palmer was the proprietor of the Akron Tyre Co and the Akron Broadcasting Co and was the founder of Melbourne broadcasting station 3AK.

Clive Palmer studied law, journalism and politics at the University of Queensland from 1973 to 1975, but did not finish the course.

Clive Palmer later completed a Diploma of Law through the Queensland Bar Board, and worked as a clerk and interviewing officer for the Public Defender's Office.

Clive Palmer did well from the property boom on the Gold Coast, and he "retired" at the age of 29.

In 1985 and 1986 Clive Palmer founded three companies which undertook mining exploration in Western Australia.

Clive Palmer transferred Mineralogy to New Zealand in December 2018, and moved it again to Singapore in January 2019.

Clive Palmer said the decision was "a win for Australian law over Chinese Communist government powerhouses".

Clive Palmer denied that estimate and mounted a challenge in the Federal Court to the legislation as unconstitutional.

McGowan responded to the claim saying, "Today we have seen the most deplorable act of greed in Australian history", and "Clive Palmer is the greediest man in Australian history".

Clive Palmer declined to pay the entitlements of workers who lost their jobs when Queensland Nickel closed, stating that "I have no personal responsibility, I retired from business over three years ago".

The Special Purpose Liquidator of Queensland Nickel stated that Clive Palmer's offer was inadequate as it did not cover the money owed to small businesses and was unclear whether he would repay the Federal Government.

Clive Palmer stated in April 2019 that the administrators should repay the government as they were responsible for sacking the refinery's workers, and not him.

Clive Palmer maintained his position that the scheme should never have been triggered by the liquidators in the first place and under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Special Purpose Liquidator withdrew all claims the SPL made against Clive Palmer and all of the defendants associated with him.

Clive Palmer later announced plans to build a park featuring animatronic dinosaurs there.

Clive Palmer received full council approval for the park on 25 July 2013, and it was expected to open to the public in 2014.

Clive Palmer has stated that the charges are an attempt to stop him standing for election.

Clive Palmer purchased the Gold Coast United football club in 2008.

However, Clive Palmer stipulated that he would contest the decisions through legal action and claimed Lowy was a dictator.

On 2 March 2012, Clive Palmer lost his Supreme Court bid against Gold Coast United's expulsion from the A-League.

Clive Palmer hoped to recreate the Titanic as closely as possible to its familiar external and internal appearance.

Clive Palmer said the Titanic II would honour the memories of those who died and survived on the Titanic.

The Titanic was operated by the White Star Line and Clive Palmer's company is named Blue Star Line.

On 13 March 2024, Clive Palmer held a press conference to announce his revival of the Titanic II project.

Clive Palmer anticipated that construction would begin in 2025, although a shipyard had yet to be selected.

In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading in Australia, Clive Palmer placed a prominent media advertisement offering to personally fund one million doses of a "cure" for the disease.

In June 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued, a Queensland radio network stopped playing an advertisement from Clive Palmer that had stated:.

Clive Palmer had requested that his name and logo be printed on the doses of donated hydroxychloroquine.

In July 2020, Clive Palmer claimed that the closing of the borders by the Western Australian government owing to the COVID-19 pandemic was unconstitutional and challenged the WA legislation in the Federal Court.

Clive Palmer claimed that the border closure would "destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for decades" and compared the death toll of COVID-19 with that of road accidents and influenza.

Mark McGowan praised the Commonwealth for its withdrawal and indicated the Western Australian government would continue to fight the case and urging Clive Palmer to withdraw the case labelling him "Australia's greatest egomaniac" and an "Olympic scale narcissist".

In reaction to this, the Clive Palmer Group sold off its entire stake in Qantas.

In June 2002, Clive Palmer was appointed adjunct professor of business at Deakin University's Faculty of Business and Law, a role he held until 2006.

In 2008, Clive Palmer was appointed adjunct professor of management at Bond University on the Gold Coast.

In December 2012, Clive Palmer was appointed joint secretary general of the World Leadership Alliance, a new democracy-promoting council that included former US president Bill Clinton and Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Clive Palmer was named president of the alliance's business chapter, the World Economic Council.

In December 2012, on Christmas Day, Clive Palmer hosted a buffet lunch for 650 disadvantaged people, mostly children and their families.

In July 2013, Clive Palmer was referred to in an iPhone application as making light of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard by having sandwiches thrown at her.

On 4 March 2012, Clive Palmer was named, amid controversy, as a National Living Treasure by the New South Wales Branch of the National Trust of Australia.

In 2015, Clive Palmer donated a house, car and food to victims of a house fire in Beenleigh that saw their son tragically lose his life.

Clive Palmer has been a regular poster of memes on his official Facebook page.

Clive Palmer was once required to provide an affidavit explaining a tweet sent out during a hearing on 1 December 2017.

In September 2019, Clive Palmer threatened to sue internet comedian Jordan Shanks for $500,000 for defamation relating to a YouTube video posted before the May 2019 election.

Shanks responded that he had not defamed Clive Palmer and being required to prove his claims in court would not help Clive Palmer.

In September 2023, the Federal Court dismissed a claim against the Australian Electoral Commission by Clive Palmer and United Australia senator Ralph Babet that the ballot paper planned for the forthcoming constitutional referendum on an Indigenous Voice was unacceptably flawed, although that design had been used for referendums over several decades.

Clive Palmer was active in the Liberal Movement headed by then-Premier of South Australia Steele Hall in the 1970s.

Clive Palmer joined the Queensland division of the Nationals in 1974, having been influenced by the policies of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Premier of Queensland at the time.

Clive Palmer was a backer of the aborted "Joh for Canberra" campaign, which attempted to get Queensland Premier Bjelke-Petersen elected as Prime Minister of Australia at the 1987 federal election.

Clive Palmer was elected to life membership of the party in 1992, which he retained after the state branches of the Nationals and Liberal Party merged to form the Liberal National Party of Queensland in 2008.

Clive Palmer was an unsuccessful republican candidate at the 1997 Australian Constitutional Convention election, heading the eleven-member "Elect the President" ticket.

In late April 2012, Clive Palmer announced that he would contest Liberal National Party preselection for the Division of Lilley at the 2013 federal election, held by Wayne Swan, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer.

Several months after announcing his intent to seek preselection, Clive Palmer resigned his life membership of the Liberal National Party.

In March 2012, Clive Palmer accused Drew Hutton and Greenpeace of receiving funding from the CIA, due to Hutton's involvement in the preparation of a Greenpeace strategy titled "Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom".

Clive Palmer's claims were dismissed by Greenpeace senior campaigner John Hepburn as "ludicrous", and he said that Greenpeace would not accept money from any government, corporation or secret service.

On 25 April 2013, Clive Palmer announced a "reformation" of the United Australia Party, which had been folded into the present-day Liberal Party in 1945, to stand candidates in the 2013 federal election, and had applied for its registration in Queensland.

Clive Palmer ran as the candidate in the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax for his party in the 2013 Australian federal election.

Clive Palmer's party was successful in the Senate in 2013, where three of his party members were elected and won a shared balance of power.

The Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie resigned from the Clive Palmer United Party on 24 November 2014 announcing that she would remain in the Senate as an independent.

Clive Palmer was absent from Parliament more than any other MP in the 44th Parliament; he attended only 64 percent of sitting days in 2014 and 54 percent in 2015.

Clive Palmer was rarely seen in his own electorate, preferring to reside at his Gold Coast residence.

In May 2016, Clive Palmer announced he would not seek reelection to his seat of Fairfax or run for the Senate and retire from politics.

Clive Palmer deregistered the party's state branches in September 2016, initially intending to keep it active at the federal level.

In February 2018, Clive Palmer announced his intention to resurrect his party and return to federal politics.

When using the name Clive Palmer United, the party continued to brand itself as a revival of the original UAP, claiming the three leaders of the original UAP, Joseph Lyons, Robert Menzies and Billy Hughes as its former leaders.

Clive Palmer spent $60 million at the 2019 election, with most of the advertising consisting of attacks on the Australian Labor Party.

Ahead of the 2019 election, Clive Palmer altered the lyrics of the Twisted Sister song "We're Not Gonna Take It" to "Australia ain't gonna cop it" in a national TV campaign for United Australia Party.

Clive Palmer disputed Twisted Sister's claim that they held any copyright over the portion of the song used in the advertisements, as he composed the lyrics and the melody was derived from "O Come, All Ye Faithful".

Clive Palmer was ordered to pay legal costs and to remove all copies of the song and accompanying videos from the internet.

In 2021, Clive Palmer welcomed to his party Liberal Party defector Craig Kelly, an outspoken critic of scientific findings on climate change and on vaccines.

At a press conference on 19 February 2025, Clive Palmer announced that he had joined Trumpet of Patriots, following the High Court ruling that he would be unable to register the United Australia Party for the 2025 federal election after its voluntary de-registration in 2022.

Clive Palmer has announced that the party's policies are to be modelled on those of Donald Trump and that he plans to spend $90m on its campaign in the federal election of 2025.

In March 2020, Clive Palmer appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court to answer four charges of fraud and other dishonesty, brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Clive Palmer was married to his first wife, Susan Clive Palmer, for 22 years until she died from cancer in 2006.

In 2007, Clive Palmer married Anna, and they have two daughters, Mary and Lucy.

Clive Palmer is a Roman Catholic and was a prominent member of Right to Life Australia while at university, organising pro-life rallies on campus.

In February 2022 Clive Palmer tested positive for COVID-19 and was diagnosed with pneumonia.

On 28 February 2022 it was reported that Clive Palmer had purchased Adolf Hitler's Mercedes-Benz 770, and a Rolls-Royce once owned by King Edward VIII, to become part of a collection for a planned vintage car museum in Queensland.