Real estate During the early to mid-1980s, Palmer worked as a real estate agent. He did well from the property boom on the
Gold Coast, and retired from real estate at the age of 29.
Mineralogy In 1985 and 1986 Palmer founded three companies which undertook mining exploration in Western Australia (WA). a company which in 2006 had of iron ore reserves in the
Pilbara Ranges, in remote northern
Western Australia. In 2008, Palmer bought Waratah Coal. Palmer transferred Mineralogy to New Zealand in December 2018, and moved it again to Singapore in January 2019. Mineralogy has been involved in a long-running dispute with
CITIC over a royalty payment. Mineralogy and CITIC entered into an agreement in 2006 to develop some of the iron ore reserves Palmer owns. As of May 2019, CITIC was suing Palmer and he had counter-sued them for $5 billion. On 28 March 2023, Palmer's
Singapore-based company, Zeph Investments, filed a notice of arbitration, suing the
Commonwealth of Australia for A$296 billion over the alleged loss of contractual entitlement, “moral damages” and “sovereign risk”, in relation to the iron ore project for which Palmer's company, Mineralogy, had already lost a
lawsuit. 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". The
Attorney-General,
Mark Dreyfus, said that the Commonwealth will "vigorously defend" the suit. The
Permanent Court of Arbitration dismissed the suit in September 2025, ruling that it had no jurisdiction over a claim against a state by one of its own citizens; Palmer was not a 'foreign investor' through his Singapore-based company. He was ordered to pay costs of A$13.6m. It is now uncertain whether Palmer's three PCA cases against the government of Queensland, claiming a further total of A$120b, will proceed.
Queensland Nickel In 2009, he bought
Queensland Nickel and the
Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery after BHP was going to close the refinery. In the first year after purchasing the refinery, Palmer gifted staff 50 Mercedes Benz cars and thousands of overseas holidays after the refinery turned a huge profit. On 18 January 2016, Queensland Nickel entered
voluntary administration. 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". He also blamed the administrators for sacking the workforce. This forced the Federal Government to cover the workers' entitlements. In April 2019 Palmer announced that he intended to re-open the Queensland Nickel refinery and pay the $7.16 million still owed to workers following the
2019 federal election. The Special Purpose Liquidator of Queensland Nickel stated that 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. The Liquidator was seeking $200 million from Palmer, other individuals and related entities, with a trial to take place from July 2019. 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.
The Canberra Times reported that 218 workers were made redundant shortly before the operation was placed into voluntary administration. 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 Palmer and all of the defendants associated with him. All parties paid their own costs in the court matter; Palmer personally appeared in court and represented himself. A small number of debt claims against Mineralogy remain in dispute and before the courts. Palmer claimed that the settlement of the debts had left him “vindicated”. “Today's settlement confirms the actions against me were nothing more than a witch-hunt designed to smear my good reputation”, Palmer said.
Palmer Coolum Resort: Dinosaur Park Palmer purchased the Coolum Hyatt Resort in 2011. He later announced plans to build a park featuring
animatronic dinosaurs there. Palmer ordered more than 160 animatronic dinosaurs, which included an initial shipment of a tall, long
T. rex, nicknamed "Jeff". Palmer received full council approval for the park on 25 July 2013, and it was expected to open to the public in 2014. On 14 December 2013, the dinosaur park, now called "Palmersaurus", was opened to the public. Palmer's installation of dinosaurs along the side of the resort's golf course led the
Australian PGA Championship to be relocated from it. The Palmer Coolum Resort was mothballed in 2015 due to low occupancy rates, with 600 people losing their jobs over the period after Palmer purchased the complex. In 2018 the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission charged Palmer with violations of the Corporation Act in relation to an attempt to take over timeshare villas at the resort in 2012. Palmer has stated that the charges are an attempt to stop him standing for election.
Soccer Palmer purchased the
Gold Coast United football club in 2008. In October 2009, he made a decision to cap attendances of Gold Coast United home games at
Skilled Park stadium to 5,000, On 29 February 2012,
Ben Buckley and
Frank Lowy announced that Palmer's licence for Gold Coast United FC was to be revoked for constant breaches of FFA rules and regulations and sought to pay out the contracts of the players for the remaining month of the season. Lowy stated that he acted to protect the integrity of the sport. Despite a ruling ordering the removal of "Freedom of Speech" logos on team shirts, Palmer indicated they would remain. On 2 March 2012, Palmer lost his
Supreme Court bid against Gold Coast United's expulsion from the
A-League. In 2012, after the FFA revoked his Gold Coast United A-League licence, Palmer founded
Football Australia – a competing organisation for the sport of football in Australia.
Titanic II In February 2013, at a press conference in New York, Palmer announced plans to build a modern-day replica of the
liner . It was planned that
Titanic II would be built in China and make its maiden voyage from
Southampton to New York City in 2016 (later postponed to 2018). Palmer hoped to recreate the
Titanic as closely as possible to its familiar external and internal appearance. According to Palmer, the
Titanic II would be long, weigh
gross, and carry 2,435 passengers and 900 crew. 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 Palmer's company is named Blue Star Line. During the first half of 2015, evidence accumulated strongly suggesting that the project had been abandoned. The Blue Star Line trademark was listed as "abandoned". No construction had been ordered in the Chinese shipyard identified as the likely building site with the workers highly skeptical that the project would ever move beyond the proposal stage. In May 2016 it was reported by the administrators for an insolvent Palmer company, Queensland Nickel, that no significant money had been spent on the development of
Titanic II in over two years. On 27 September 2018, in a press release on its official web site, the Blue Star Line announced that work on the project would recommence. On 13 March 2024, Palmer held a press conference to announce his revival of the
Titanic II project. He anticipated that construction would begin in 2025, although a shipyard had yet to be selected. Citing the COVID-19 Pandemic as a major factor, prior plans for the ship did not push through, while promising the contract tender for the construction released and signed by June and December 2024, respectively.
COVID-19 pandemic Advertisements In March 2020, as the
COVID-19 pandemic was
spreading in Australia, Palmer placed a prominent media advertisement offering to personally fund one million doses of a "cure" for the disease. The medication would include
hydroxychloroquine, which is established in other countries as an anti-malarial drug but is known to have serious side-effects. The Australian drugs regulator, the
Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had warned that this drug and its derivatives “pose well-known serious risks to patients including cardiac toxicity potentially leading to sudden heart attacks, irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar potentially leading to coma”. The TGA stated that it was considering legal action against Palmer. Other experts also criticised Palmer, concerning safety as well as the ethics of potentially producing a shortage of the drug in countries where it is needed to combat malaria. However, it was later confirmed that the federal health department planned to import hydroxychloroquine for emergency use, with a written agreement for partial funding by Palmer. On 28 April, Palmer placed further prominent advertisements in News Corp media, claiming to have purchased 32.9 million doses of hydroxychloroquine. The TGA stated that no action would be taken with respect to either set of advertisements, since they were "assessed as not intended to promote the sale of the product”. However, the President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Harry Nespolon, warned that trials of the drug were still ongoing and were "not looking particularly promising”. He was also concerned that "people may think that a cure is imminent and be lulled into a false sense of security so that they don't exercise social distancing responsibilities”. In June 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued, a Queensland radio network stopped playing an advertisement from Palmer that had stated: :Australia has had one COVID-19 associated death in 2021. But the TGA reports that there's been 210 deaths and over 24,000 adverse reactions after COVID vaccinations. Authorised by Clive Palmer, Brisbane. The TGA had warned the network and Palmer that this was seriously misleading to the public: the figure of 210 deaths a few days or weeks after vaccination was statistically normal; only one of those deaths could be linked to the vaccination itself. The same month, it was reported that Palmer had sent letters to households across Australia urging against vaccination for COVID-19, based on the discredited death figures. This was reported again in July, and that Palmer had disregarded a further warning from the TGA. Palmer had requested that his name and logo be printed on the doses of donated hydroxychloroquine. The
Department of Health denied Palmer's request.
Western Australia border closure In July 2020, 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. In response the Western Australian Premier
Mark McGowan labelled Palmer an
enemy of the state. Palmer also 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. By August, the Prime Minister of Australia
Scott Morrison withdrew support of Palmer's legal challenge after receiving a public backlash on his previous supportive stance. Mark McGowan praised the Commonwealth for its withdrawal and indicated the Western Australian government would continue to fight the case and urging Palmer to withdraw the case labelling him "Australia's greatest
egomaniac" and an "Olympic scale
narcissist". As the issues moved to the constitutional level, they came to involve possible conflict between major constitutional principles:
parliamentary sovereignty and the
rule of law. On 6 November 2020, the
High Court upheld the legislation. Challenges to the constitutionality of amendments to the Act made in 2020 failed in the High Court on 13 October 2021. In this context, Palmer sued McGowan for defamation and McGowan counter-sued Palmer for defamation. The
Federal Court found on 2 August 2022 that each had defamed the other, awarded each a relatively small amount in damages and warned that such a dispute between prominent political figures should never have wasted the court's time and resources.
Palmer Group share selloff In August 2021, Australian airline
Qantas announced that it would require all of its 22,000 employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In reaction to this, the Palmer Group sold off its entire stake in Qantas.
Other activities In June 2002, Palmer was appointed
adjunct professor of business at
Deakin University's Faculty of Business and Law, a role he held until 2006. During that time, he delivered a series of lectures as part of Deakin's MBA residential programs. In 2008, Palmer was appointed adjunct professor of management at
Bond University on the
Gold Coast. In December 2012, Palmer was appointed joint secretary general of the World Leadership Alliance, a democracy-promoting council that included former US president
Bill Clinton and
Myanmar's opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi. Palmer was named president of the alliance's business chapter, the World Economic Council. In December 2012, on Christmas Day, Palmer hosted a buffet lunch for 650 disadvantaged people, mostly children and their families. In July 2013, Palmer was referred to in an iPhone application as making light of Australian Prime Minister
Julia Gillard by having sandwiches thrown at her.
News Corp Australia publications were critical of the app, calling it sexist, while referring to his weight in an opinion poll with an option saying "We should have one for big Clive Palmer". On 4 March 2012, Palmer was named, amid controversy, as a
National Living Treasure by the New South Wales Branch of the
National Trust of Australia.
The Australian reported that workers at his nickel refinery were encouraged to vote for him. In 2015, Palmer donated a house, car and food to victims of a house fire in Beenleigh that saw their son tragically lose his life. Palmer has been a regular poster of
memes on his official
Facebook page. The memes often have nonsensical or ironic undertones, and contain reoccurring themes – such as
Rupert Murdoch's control of the media in Australia, contrasting himself with other political figures such as
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, or paying homage to
Tim Tam packets and his pet "Grog Dog". Palmer was once required to provide an affidavit explaining a tweet sent out during a hearing on 1 December 2017. In September 2019, Palmer threatened to sue internet comedian
Jordan Shanks for $500,000 for
defamation relating to a
YouTube video posted before the
May 2019 election. The video created by Shanks called Palmer a "dense Humpty Dumpty" and a profane nickname that stated Palmer was a "Fatty McFuckhead". Shanks responded that he had not defamed Palmer and being required to prove his claims in court would not help Palmer. In September 2023, the
Federal Court dismissed a claim against the
Australian Electoral Commission by 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. ==Politics==