Palmer backs away from colourful claims • David Wroe SMHMining...

Palmer backs away from colourful claims
• David Wroe SMH

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer has stepped back from some of the colourful remarks he made yesterday about the Greens and conservationists, insisting party leader Bob Brown is a patriot and most environmentalists are well-meaning.

Clarifying yesterday's broad spray in which he claimed the Greens and the environmental group Greenpeace were tools of the CIA in a plot to undermine Australia's coal exports, Mr Palmer narrowed his accusations late last night to elements of the Green movement in Queensland.
"A lot of the people in Greenpeace are good people. But I don't like the idea that they are being funded by foreign people and many of them don't even know it," he told the National Times.

"I personally think Bob (Brown) is pretty sincere. I don't agree with him, but the point is I think he's Australian. I don't question his loyalty to Australia. I personally don't think Bob Brown would be associated with foreign groups.

"I think a lot of Greens want to do the best thing . . . I disagree with them. Maybe I'm not 100 per cent right and I'm sure they're not 100 per cent right. I'm trying to broaden the debate."

Mr Palmer, one of Australia's richest people, stood by his claim that Drew Hutton, the anti-coal seam gas campaigner and central figure in the Queensland Greens, was linked to the CIA via his involvement in the preparation of a Greenpeace strategy titled "Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom".

The authors of the report acknowledge the ''generous support of the Rockefeller Family Fund''.
The Fund offers grants to advocacy groups to help raise awareness of what it describes as ''key societal challenges''.

When contacted by The National Times, the Fund - based in New York - could not immediately answer questions about the grant provided for the Australian report but said it would respond to questions about Mr Palmer's allegations.
This morning Foreign Minister Bob Carr said that he expected phone calls from the United States over Mr Palmer's comments

"I expect to be taking phone calls from Americans today saying 'Hang on, we're fighting together in Afghanistan, you've got a treaty relationship with us, do you think we'd be using the CIA to wreck the economy of an ally? That would not be in our interest'.

"I'd expect to have at the very least, a few curious, bemused but polite phone calls from Americans."

Senator Carr also said that he thought Mr Palmer's comments could create the impression that Australia was a "risky" place to do business.

"You're going to have investors thinking 'Woooo, what's this? I mean who is this guy?' And someone's going to tell them that he is the number one donor to Tony Abbott," Senator Carr said.

"I think Tony Abbott's got to widen the circle of his advice."
This morning on Channel 10, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott labelled Mr Palmer a "larger than life character," but said he was not into "bandying around charges of treason".
Greenpeace yesterday ridiculed suggestions that it had ever received CIA support.

Standing by his claims that the United States through the CIA was trying to undermine Australia's coal exports to Asia to preserve its own economic dominance, the Queensland magnate said Rockefeller family organisations had been shown in the past to be fronts for CIA activity.
Mr Hutton, who heads Queensland’s Lock The Gate Alliance, said Mr Palmer had shown through his comments that he was "massively confused".

"In the US, various philanthropic organisations have funded environmental groups and community groups to legally challenge big mining companies who are conducting inappropriate development. And they are beating them in court," he said.

"It should come as no surprise to anybody that environmental non-government organisations would try to access the same sorts of philanthropic organisations to be able to get funding to groups who are doing the same thing here in Australia.”

Mr Hutton said he knew of no organisations in Australia that had received such funding.
"Neither the Lock the Gate Alliance, nor any other environment group that I’m aware of, is receiving any donations from the Rockefeller Foundation or any other overseas group," he said.

Mr Hutton, who described Mr Palmer’s comments as "bizarre", said the Rockefeller Foundation had no involvement in the report, monetary or otherwise.
"That report that he’s referring to is an attempt by environmental NGOs to try to get funding for activities opposing the massive expansion of coal mining that’s going on in Australia," he said.

"It should come as a surprise to nobody that environmental organisations are wanting to limit the expansion of coal mining."

- With Daniel Flitton, Marissa Calligeros