DID the People’s Republic of China unknowingly bankroll the Palmer
United Party’s balance-of-power-achieving success in the federal
election last September?
This is the question that Tony Abbott, China’s political leadership in Beijing and a small army of lawyers in Perth and Brisbane are now asking with increasingly serious concerns about where it will all lead.
As a result of new filings in the Supreme Court in Brisbane yesterday, the answer is increasingly moving towards the positive: yes, it looks like millions of Chinese dollars went into the Palmer political campaign.
It is a remarkable scenario. The Chinese, as the West Australia Premier Colin Barnett reminded us all last month, “hate Clive Palmer”.
We know now that at least $2.167 million of Chinese government cash, held in a Palmer-controlled National Australia Bank account, was quietly removed in September last year just days before the federal election.
And for the first time, new court documents show that the money went to a Brisbane media agency, somewhat appropriately called Media Circus Network.
Palmer has been running a media circus for what seems like ages. But we also now know, thanks to the new documents filed yesterday, that the $2.167m paid to the Media Circus Network, controlled by “advertising queen” Teena Jameson and her partner Jon Cole, helps clients build brand-profile with advertisements across the media.
Most Australians would also have noticed that the PUP benefitted
from massive and costly advertising in the lead-up to the September 7
election.
This is the question that Tony Abbott, China’s political leadership in Beijing and a small army of lawyers in Perth and Brisbane are now asking with increasingly serious concerns about where it will all lead.
As a result of new filings in the Supreme Court in Brisbane yesterday, the answer is increasingly moving towards the positive: yes, it looks like millions of Chinese dollars went into the Palmer political campaign.
It is a remarkable scenario. The Chinese, as the West Australia Premier Colin Barnett reminded us all last month, “hate Clive Palmer”.
We know now that at least $2.167 million of Chinese government cash, held in a Palmer-controlled National Australia Bank account, was quietly removed in September last year just days before the federal election.
And for the first time, new court documents show that the money went to a Brisbane media agency, somewhat appropriately called Media Circus Network.
Palmer has been running a media circus for what seems like ages. But we also now know, thanks to the new documents filed yesterday, that the $2.167m paid to the Media Circus Network, controlled by “advertising queen” Teena Jameson and her partner Jon Cole, helps clients build brand-profile with advertisements across the media.
The Chinese wanted their money spent only on what the contracts specified — reasonable expenses of running a port in Western Australia for exporting iron ore — not on running more than 150 political misfits in a federal election.
