Print EmailAustralian Broadcasting CorporationBroadcast: 20/03/2012Reporter: Tom Iggulden
Billionaire mine owner Clive Palmer has accused the CIA of funding environmental groups opposed to his latest coal venture, and accused the Greens of treason.
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Billionaire mine owner Clive Palmer has accused the CIA of trying to destroy the Australian coal industry, and he believes the Greens are guilty of treason for helping.
In a wide-ranging performance today, he's expressed his respect for Treasurer Wayne Swan, who recently claimed that Mr Palmer was undermining democracy.
The Queensland-based mining magnate also says he's not worried about the Government's mining tax passed through the Senate last night, but his fellow mining bosses confirmed they're considering a High Court challenge to the new laws.
Political correspondent Tom Iggulden reports from Canberra.
TOM IGGULDEN, REPORTER: The Prime Minister's got her tail up after last night's Senate session.
JULIA GILLARD, PRIME MINISTER: I've put up with months and months of scoffing about the minerals resource rent tax. Guess what? It went through the Senate last night.
TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER: The Labor Party always chooses to celebrate when they're hitting us with a big new tax.
JULIA GILLARD: I think I'm entitled to go scoreboard, and at the moment it's running more in my favour than yours.
TOM IGGULDEN: But Liberal state premiers are trying to even up the tally. They're daring the Government to follow through on its threat to punish them financially if they put up their mining taxes.
COLIN BARNETT, WA PREMIER: If we choose to raise the price in the future we will do so regardless of any opinion of Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard or Penny Wong.
TOM IGGULDEN: The Federal Government's agreed to reimburse miners for state royalty increases, like the billion dollar raise proposed in NSW, potentially putting a hole in Wayne Swan's budget.
MIKE BAIRD, NSW TREASURER: He is misleading the people of Australia if he is saying that they don't think NSW is actually putting forward a royalty proposal. It's in our budget papers, it is happening.
TOM IGGULDEN: Meanwhile Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals says it's preparing a High Court challenge to the tax.
PETER MUERS, FORTESCUE METALS: We certainly have briefed counsel, and we're waiting for their advice on how we move forward.
COLIN BARNETT: If there is a High Court challenge, the State Government will intervene in that and present the state's point of view, which is to oppose the mining tax.
TOM IGGULDEN: The Opposition Leader says the tax will be more popular outside Australia than in it.
TONY ABBOTT: They will be celebrating in Canada, they will be celebrating in Chile, they will be celebrating in parts of Africa because jobs and investment that would be going to Australia will now be going to other countries.
CLIVE PALMER, MINING MAGNATE: We care about this country. It's under attack by foreign interests.
TOM IGGULDEN: Billionaire coal miner Clive Palmer says he's got proof the American secret service is trying to destroy Australia's coal industry.
CLIVE PALMER: I think they want to promote their commodities at the expense of ours. Drew Hutton is a tool of the US government and Rockefeller, and so are the Greens and everything they say.
TOM IGGULDEN: Mr Hutton is president of "Lock the Gate", which is fighting coal seam gas mining in Queensland, and a contributor to a Greenpeace strategy paper called Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom.
The American non-profit group Rockefeller Family Trust funded the paper. Mr Palmer cited a US report into Watergate and US attempts to assassinate foreign leaders is proof of a link to the CIA.
CLIVE PALMER: We only have to go back to read the Church report in the 1970s and to reads the report to the US Congress which sets up the Rockefeller organisation as a conduit of CIA funding.
TOM IGGULDEN: And he says US covert influence in Australia is nothing new.
CLIVE PALMER: You go back to the Whitlam dismissal, have a read of that. OK, you asked for an example, that's been documented. You go back and have a look at that. That was certainly dismissed. I can tell you that, because I was aware of it at the time.
TOM IGGULDEN: The Greenpeace paper calls for court action and media strategy, and using the Greens to advance the anti-coal cause politically.
CLIVE PALMER: I think the Greens in the late-coming state election all their candidates should resign because they're being funded by an offshore political power. It's tantamount ro treason.
TOM IGGULDEN: Bob Brown denies the Greens take money from the CIA.
BOB BROWN, GREENS LEADER: This is serious stuff. This is a serious funder of the Liberal National Party. This is heartland Liberal National Party Queensland, and this is that sort of stupidity from Clive Palmer, with Campbell Newman, just has to rule right out.
TOM IGGULDEN: Mr Palmer is a prominent donor to the Coalition, whose members are already distancing themselves from the comments.
SCOTT BUCHHOLTZ, LIBERAL NATIONAL PARTY MP: Look, Kim, it's, uh ... I haven't spoken to Clive on the issue personally. No, I ... that's a tough one. That's really tough.
MATHIAS CORMAN, LIBERAL SENATOR: On the face of it, it sounds out there, but obviously I don't really know where he's coming from.
TOM IGGULDEN: As for the mining tax, Clive Palmer says he isn't worried about it because he probably won't have to pay it. Says the man who last week threatened to challenge the carbon tax in the High Court, "I don't care about any tax, it won't affect my life one way or the other."
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