It’s been a big year for Australian millionaire Clive Palmer. He decided to build a replica of the Titanic. He also announced the addition of an animatronic dinosaur park to his Coolum resort, complete with a T-Rex named “Jeff.” And, if polls are any indication, he might see his political party—the Palmer United Party—secure a Senate seat in Queensland in Australia’s upcoming elections.
Rupert Murdoch-owned The Australian addressed this potential election outcome in today’s front page article, “Why we need to worry about the real Clive Palmer,” a piece that takes Palmer to task for his alleged political misrepresentations:
CONTRARY to the flim-flam and spin, Clive Frederick Palmer is not a professor, not an adviser to the G20, not a mining magnate, not a legal guru and not an advocate for freedom of speech. He's probably not a billionaire. And he's a trillion-to-one chance of becoming prime minister on Saturday.
If the latest polls are correct, however, there is one disturbing prospect: the Gold Coast property tycoon, a man with a history of peddling fantasies that often morph into a unique version of "reality", could see his party in control of the sixth Senate seat in Queensland - and possibly even Australia's balance of power.
In response to this article, Palmer says he plans to sue Murdoch and then, in a separate interview with the Nine Network, responded like any rational person who builds dinosaur parks would:
"'You know, Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng is a Chinese spy, and that's been right across the world,'' Palmer alleged, prompting the stunned host to ask whether he had "lost the plot".
"She's been spying on Rupert for years, giving money back to Chinese intelligence. She was trained in southern China. I'm telling you the truth," Palmer said.
"Wendi Deng is a Chinese spy and that's why Rupert got rid of her."
Case closed.