Australians look at Clive Palmer in all sorts of ways – billionaire miner, benevolent soccer fan, antagonist of politicians, media darling (especially on Lateline), big dreamer and builder of Titanic II. Most see him as larger than life, and that includes his five-year-old daughter, Mary.
“She says I’m funny,” Palmer says. “She reads the cartoons they make about me and she always recognises me.” Why? “Probably because of my fat tummy. She says, ‘That’s dad’s tummy!’ and she comes and pats my tummy and says, ‘Look, dad, there you are’.”
At 59, Palmer is an older father to Mary, his third child (he has two grown-up children, Michael and Emily, from his first marriage).
Does he read Mary stories? “I do. It’s a bit tedious. I read her a story and she says, ‘Can I have another one, Dad?’ And then I read her another one and she says, ‘Can I have another one?’”
I meet Clive Palmer at a Melbourne hotel after a media conference about his Palmer United Party, which he launched in April. Its original name was United Australia Party. I have managed to obtain some face time with the man who is very much in a hurry – jetting around the country trying to convince Australians he should be their next prime minister.
He’s a big man with undeniably big ideas, and he thinks he’s ready for leadership. “The gross domestic product – that’s how politicians measure life,” he says. “The GDP includes the cost of all our crimes, our police forces, our armies, the cost of accident insurance policies – all the negative things. It doesn’t record the sunshine, the smile on a child’s face and the quality of life that people enjoy. And politicians really should be there to provide a better lifestyle for the people they serve and represent, to make sure the assets they’ve got in sacred trust for the community are optimised and spent better.
“I’m here to give my life experience and the skills that I’ve got for the benefit of the community.”
Palmer is proud he’s lived various lives, including stints in the Western Australian desert in the late 1980s exploring for iron ore for his company, Mineralogy. “We went out exploring for iron ore and we had six to nine months every year,” he says.
“I was in the desert, 45 degrees in Western Australia, drilling, looking for iron ore, and we discovered the world’s largest iron ore deposit and I became a billionaire, but that didn’t change the person I was.”
Has wealth changed him? “Well it means I’ve got the power to convene the media wherever I go in the world, right? Which gives you a chance to do some good.”
Palmer spent his early years in Williamstown, and I ask what he wanted to be when he was growing up. “I wanted to be well,” he says. “I had asthma. I used to go to hospital all the time, St Vincent’s Hospital among others. I wanted to get out and see the sunshine. When I was eight years old going to the clinic, my heart stopped beating and I stopped breathing.
I think that was a big change in my life because it made me realise you’ve got to live for today and for tomorrow. And what people think of you – positive or negative – isn’t something that should stop you doing what you think is the right thing to do.”
How did that illness shape him as a person? “I think it’s made me more harsh in some of my judgment. It’s made me not want to waste time.” Harsh in judgment? “Well, you’ve heard people say that it cost me nothing but my time. Well, there’s nothing more that it can cost you, that’s the most valuable commodity that a human being’s got, certainly more valuable than money or a concept of money. That’s all [money] is, a concept. And I think we’ve got to realise that the role of money is only of benefit if it is spent to help people.”
His family moved to Queensland in 1963 when he was nine and Palmer was raised on the Gold Coast. “We were sort of middle class I suppose,” he says.
He barracked for the Bulldogs growing up. “I used to play some junior Aussie Rules. I think AFL’s a great sport. You know what’s good about it? It’s Australian, something that we can be proud of. As we leap high into the air, we can tell the world ‘Look at us, we can do better’. My uncle is from Gippsland, he lived outside Bairnsdale. I used to go to the Sale fishing competition every year, camp on the beach, catch gummy sharks, I used to go fishing for eels in the Gippsland Lakes, and catch tortoises. My uncle was a cutter of sleepers for the railway, we’d cut tall timbers together and make sleepers. I was nine or 10.’’
How does he look back on his successes? “Well I don’t look back. I look forward. I say anything you’ve done yesterday is yesterday. Anything you do tomorrow is tomorrow. At my age in life we don’t want to take the future from our children. Our present really is giving our children a future, and that’s all I want to do.”
In February, he announced plans to build a replica of the Titanic in China. How does he think the decision to build a Titanic replica was seen in Australia? “Because it was different, people don’t really understand it,” he says.
“From a business basis we launched the Titanic rebuild in New York and London this year and we see $500 million worth of media around the world. We’ve got 40,000 people wanting to go on the ship. Fortunately, it looks like we’ve made another few hundred million dollars from an idea.”
Where did his obsession with the Titanic come from? “I don’t have an obsession with the Titanic. The Titanic was something that needed to be built. We all know how to make war. We get armies and we fund wars. People know about that. But it’s a lot harder to make peace. To make peace you’ve got to stick with it every day. You progress inch by inch.
“The Titanic is something that can provide peace, can be a ship of peace between China, the United States and Europe, where a lot of the action is happening. So it’s captured the imagination of the people in China. It’s captured the imagination of people in Europe and in the US.
“We’ve got over 100 Australians working on that project at the moment. It’s got a whole Australian flavour. People don’t really understand that. So why shouldn’t Australians do things internationally for our country? Why should we have to go and live in America? Basically I’m an Australian and I love my country and I’m prepared to offer myself and whatever skills and ability I’ve got for people who haven’t got those skills and ability. I’ve got a track record.”
In 2005, Palmer’s first wife, Susan, died of cancer. They were married for 22 years. “It brings you in contact with reality,” he says of the loss. “It makes me think how grateful I was to have made decisions as I made them based on the present rather than putting things off. When you lose someone that loves you and you love them, that love doesn’t die, it still influences my life every day. Fortunately, my [second] wife, Anna, understands that because she lost her husband, one of my best friends, in the same week and after a while we got married, and we’ve had a little girl, Mary, which is a wonderful thing.”
He married Anna (formerly Topalov) in 2007. Their daughter, Mary, is five. “She’s a joy to me,” he says of Mary. “It makes me realise I’m a bit selfish if I don’t offer to serve the community. This country’s been good to me, so why shouldn’t I be good for this country?”
How does he feel about being a father again at 59? “I’d like to be a dad again,” he says. “When they hand you the baby in the hospital, you know that there’s no one else there except you and them,” he says.
“It’s a great thing. And it’s a great sadness when you feel what’s happening with the Aboriginal community, that Australia has the highest infant mortality rate in the world and other Australians’ babies are dying and none of us care about that. If it was your son or your daughter, if your sister was upset, you’d do something about it. And the fact that our politicians haven’t done anything about that issue – forget about reconciliation and land rights – all of those things are more important to me, not money, not materialism, but human babies’ lives.”
In 2009 Palmer was rushed to hospital after suffering what was thought to be a heart attack. It was later dismissed as a heart palpitation. “It was a good development, really, because I had all the stress tests done and they scanned me and said I was in the lowest half a per cent of people who would have a heart attack. Despite my appearance and what people worry about, I had pretty good arteries.”
I ask Palmer where and when he is happiest. “Well, I think all Australians when they go to bed at night with their wife and talk about the day and say what their hopes, dreams and aspirations are, get a little bit of sustenance from the things that you’ve got and, you know, despite all the things that happen to you every day, there is somewhere you can go and someone who cares about you. That’s love. And that’s something we need more of in this country. It’s not fashionable; politicians don’t talk about it, but basically that’s what we need.”
What are the qualities he loves in Anna? “Forgiveness, because I’m somebody that makes a lot of mistakes. Sometimes I get things wrong and she offers me forgiveness and reconciliation. And that’s a wonderful thing. It puts a heavy burden on you to forgive others, and turn the other cheek, but that’s what the Bible tells us to do.”
