Locked out of the house Clive built
Date
June 2, 2013
It was just a request for billionaire Clive Palmer to contact his critically ill half-brother George in hospital but the reply was startling in its tone.
''How many times did he [George] visit me as a boy or a teenager. How many letters or cards did he send me on birthdays, at Christmas, and how many times did he visit me when I was dying in hospital as a boy,'' snapped back the email to George's son, David.
''Not once a phone call, not one letter, not one card, so don't preach to me what you don't know. He knew where we lived. He was just too busy chasing women,'' said the email from a ''Terry Smith''. (A former managing director of one of Palmer's companies gave evidence in a 2011 NSW Supreme Court case that ''Terry Smith'' was an alias used by Palmer.)
Now, prompted by their relative's growing public prominence, Palmer's half-brother George and his immediate family have revealed the bitter email exchange. They fear Palmer has split the family by bestowing wealth on one half and airbrushing out the others.
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''I used to be proud of Clive but he changed my own mind for me, accusing me of chasing women,'' says George. ''I think he's got too much power. He's too big in the mouth.''
On Saturday, Palmer denied sending the email. ''I don't know anything about the email. My name is not on it.''
But Palmer later said he couldn't rule out that someone from his organisation or family did send the email: ''I personally didn't do it. Whether someone else did on my staff, whether my mother did, who knows,'' he said.
From his mansion in Queensland, a long way from his elderly half-brother's two-bedroom rental in Geelong, Palmer has been busy making his mining fortune, pushing his Titanic II plan, and amping up his political ambitions.
As he has built his business empire, Palmer has kept some members of his family close, such as his half-sister Fay Brewster from his father's first marriage. He has appointed members of her family to key roles in his businesses and his political party.
But George, also from Palmer's father's first marriage, appears to have been locked out of Clive's inner sanctum and even at times rejected. It's a situation that has baffled 85-year-old George and his two sons, David and Chris.
George says his father was, as Palmer proudly maintains, an innovative and visionary businessman. But there the two sons' impressions of their father part ways.
Palmer speaks of his father in only glowing terms, but George says his father was also a rogue and womaniser who seemed to have little time for his family.
George was 14 when his parents broke up. George senior then married Nancy, Clive's mother. For many years George wondered what his father was up to but says he never tried to find out, believing his father did not want to see him.
Then in the early 1990s, George says, without warning Palmer called saying he wanted to meet him and his family at the Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne for dinner. Just before they sat down at the table to eat, Clive dropped a bombshell, says George.
''You know your father had no money," he told George.
George was stunned as he realised then that his father was dead.
"It made me wonder if Clive was worried about us going after the will," he says.
The next occasion George had contact with his half-brother was in the late 1990s when he needed a hip operation. George says he mentioned it to his father's elderly brother and Palmer paid for the operation.
On another occasion Palmer visited George in hospital when he had open heart surgery. But apart from these few instances, George says his immediate family had almost no other contact.
But in 2010, George went into hospital for surgery on vein blockage. He says he asked his son to contact Palmer and tell him he was in hospital.
It was this that led to the email exchange.David said he sent a standard request to Palmer's official email and heard nothing.
He then sent a more forceful message: "I realise that you are a very busy man looking after and controlling 'your' empire, however I do believe that your only brother should have some sort of meaning to you, but it appears that you have just followed my grandfather's ways, your father, by forgetting that he had another son, and that you have a brother?"
It was this email that prompted the response from a "Terry Smith" on January 25, 2010, which the family believes came from Palmer.
"Your email not accurate or fair, ask your father who paid for his hip replacement and who visited him in hospital, not you," said the email.
"But you're right I'm overseas and too busy to see him and you know nothing of your grandfather. He was a person who had real content in his character, something you should aim for."
Palmer said on Saturday that he had only met George "for four days for my whole life".
"It's amazing that when you're a billionaire and standing for prime minister a lot of people come out of the cupboard," he said.
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Read more:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/locked-out-of-the-house-clive-built-20130601-2niyi.html#ixzz2UyjD8SXt
Edited by Joffa: 2/6/2013 01:26:07 AM