After yesterday announcing he wouldn’t recontest his seat of Fairfax, there was a small turnout for Palmer’s potentially last press conference as the member for Fairfax in the Senate courtyard this morning, despite staffers setting up a loud speaker for the event. Palmer announced who would be leading the Senate tickets for the Palmer United Party in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia (conveniently overlooking Queensland where he could run). It all quickly descended into a sledging match when Liberal MP for Herbert Ewen Jones crashed the party and asked Palmer where the money for Queensland Nickel workers is.

Palmer would not rule out money from Mineralogy being donated to the Palmer United Party this time around, and said he had not asked the Senate candidates to sign documents confirming they wouldn’t leave the party if elected. The candidates said they had no intention of leaving.

On the long-running mystery of who is Terry Smith, Palmer confirmed that he used the name as an alias, but used the pilbera@yahoo.com email address for all his business and parliamentary activities. He ended the press conference by saying “god bless you all, god bless media and all that”.