Media release
National director of the Palmer United Party, Peter Burke, has confirmed Tess Lazarus has refused point blank to hand back the keys to the Palmer United Party’s Canberra Office.
Mr Burke said the party never expected this kind of behaviour from the former party employee and wife of Senator Lazarus.
“Despite the fact that Mrs Lazarus never attended the office as required by her employment contract and never took directions from me as outlined in her employment contract, I never thought she would refuse to hand over the party’s property,” Mr Burke said.
“I have written to Mrs Lazarus and her staff from our federal leader’s Parliamentary office and have requested she return the keys to our Canberra operation, which she has had personal control of.
“Mrs Lazarus has so far refused to comply.”
Palmer United Party federal leader and Member for Fairfax, Clive Palmer, said from Tokyo that he understands why the Prime Minister would refer to Senator Lazarus as “feral”.
“He is certainly not a reliable person or someone you could trust and he seems to be in politics for himself,” Mr Palmer said.
“As for Senator Lazarus voting for things he did not agree with, this is just not true and it’s clear he’s made it up as he won’t name the bills.
“I would warn anyone to think twice before believing anything Mr and Mrs Lazarus say. Both of them knew the Senate term was for six years, they misled the Palmer United Party by inducing the party to spend millions of dollars to get Mr Lazarus elected only to now resign and follow his wife’s lead.”
Mr Palmer said Australians are sick of politicians saying one thing before an election and acting differently once they take their seat in Parliament.
“Senator Lazarus has not had the decency to apologise to the 250,000 Queenslanders who voted for the Palmer United Party in the Queensland Senate election,” he said.
“Without the support of the party, who he promised to support, he would not have been elected in the Senate.
“Senator Lazarus only received 6,000 votes for himself, not enough to elect him to the City Council let alone the Senate.
“The figures from the election clearly show that Palmer United Party’s vote in the Senate was lower than the House of Representative, voters must have realised then that Senator Lazarus was in it for himself and the money, not Queenslanders or the Palmer United Party.”
ENDS