Professor Clive and Mrs Anna Palmer

National Benefactor of the Award in Australia

Professor Clive F. Palmer is a self-made billionaire with numerous and varied interests. He is currently listed on BRW’s Rich List as the fifth wealthiest person in Australia.

Professor Palmer has been in the Australian resources industry since the 1980s. Through his privately owned company, Mineralogy Pty Ltd, he owns one of the world’s largest magnetite iron ore deposits (estimated at 160 billion tonnes) located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and also holds in excess of an estimated 100 billion tonnes of coal in the Galilee basin in Queensland. In 2009 Mr Palmer acquired from BHP Billiton the Yabulu nickel refinery located near Townsville in North Queensland, which supplies about 10% of the world’s nickel.

Mr Palmer has forged strong relationships with China, since first visiting China in 1962 with his family. He negotiated and successfully completed the sale by Mineralogy to CITIC Pacific of the mining right of up to 6 billion tonnes of magnetite iron ore in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The CITIC Pacific Sino Iron Project is presently the single largest direct investment by China outside of mainland China.

Mr Palmer was an Adjunct Professor of Law and Business at Deakin University in Melbourne, and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Management at Bond University on the Gold Coast. He is a much sought after public speaker at various events, both in Australia and internationally, and has in the past twelve months appeared on various current affairs programs, including BBC’s Hard Talk.
Highly regarded as a member of the Australian and international community, Professor Palmer represented the Australian business community at the APEC conference held in Sydney in 2007. He is a Director and member of the President’s Council of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, and is the Chairman of the Griffith Health Institute Development Board at Griffith University on the Gold Coast.

Professor Palmer supports various causes and is currently establishing a private Charitable Foundation dedicated primarily to supporting medical research and the needs of Aboriginal communities in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

He is the founder and owner of Gold Coast United FC, which joined the Australian national soccer A-League in 2009. He is a director of the Greg Norman Golf Foundation in Australia, and is involved in harness racing through his privately owned stud farm, Cold Mountain Stud.

Throughout his life, Mr Palmer has maintained a keen interest in modern history and politics, and was the Director and Official Public Spokesman of the National Party of Australia (NPA), Qld Division (now Liberal National Party), in the 1980s. He has since been awarded a Life Membership of the NPA (now LNP) for his service and contribution to the Party.

Professor Palmer was with his first wife, Susan Maree, for over 30 years until her tragic passing due to illness. They have a son, Michael George (now 21 y.o.) and a daughter, Emily Susan (now 16 y.o.). Mr Palmer married his second wife, Anna, in December 2007. They have a daughter, Mary Jean (now 3 y.o.).