The story refers to the leader of the Palmer United Party as a โwandererโ who at the age of four climbed out of a cabin porthole in the Java Sea and sat on a 3 inch-wide ledge running along the shipโs side.
โScreams from women passengers sounded the alert. Two Chinese stewards were lowered over the shipโs rail.โ
But in a style that bears some semblance of the future Queensland MP, the boy yelled at the stewards, โYou keep away from me!โ
In an interview with the Palmer family, Cliveโs father George, a Gold Coast travel agent, says that his son planned to be a lawyer.
โHeโll have to settle down to schoolwork,โ Mr Palmer said. โAs education is most important for a boy.โ
The story, which covers Cliveโs schoolboy travels including his 33 trips across the equator, gives an insight to the controversial politicianโs early life. Here is the report in full:
Gold Coast schoolboy Clive Palmer, 12, recently crossed the Equator for the 33rd time since he made his first trip overseas, at two weeks old.
Although he has been around the world three times, and has made 14 trips outside of Australia, he has a long way to go to catch up to his father, travel agent George Palmer, of Surfers Paradise, who has been taking parties of tourists around the world โ which he has circled 39 times โ for 37 years.
โAlthough Cliveโs schooling has been broken by travel, he is still well up in his sixth grade,โ said his father.
One of the highlights of the Palmer familyโs tours was when they penetrated Red China in 1964.
โWe travelled aboard a freighter which visited Red Chinese ports for two months,โ Mr. Palmer said.
โWe managed to get permission to land at Shanghai, Peking, and Darien, although we had no visas.โ
Mr. Palmer filmed a 16mm. colour movie of the Great Wall of China, 300 miles inland. As there were no facilities for processing colour in China, he was allowed to bring the film back to Australia.
It is now part of his huge film library of more than 100 countries.
During the tour Clive and his parents gathered memories which will last a lifetime, including that of a guard at a barbed wire fence around one of the few Roman Catholic Churches allowed to remain open in 1964.
The Palmersโ married daughter, Jean, now 21, bravely asked the guard: โIs the fence to keep God in or out?โ
The Palmer familyโs most terrifying voyage occurred aboard a Dutch freighter in the millpond Java Sea, off Indonesia.
Clive was four and a wanderer. While his parents were asleep, he climbed out of the cabin porthole on to a 3in.-wide ledge running along the shipโs side.
Screams from women passengers sounded the alert. Two Chinese stewards were lowered over the shipโs rail.
As they closed in on Clive he yelled: โYou keep away from me!โ
โLeave him alone,โ bellowed the Captain from the bridge, who had stopped the ship and swung out a lifeboat.
Meanwhile Mrs. Palmer, forcing calmness into her voice, said: โWhat are you doing out there, Clive?โ
โIโm looking for fishies,โ the four-year-old replied.
Finally Mrs. Palmer, managed to coax him to the porthole by saying: โCome here, love. Thereโs something I want to brush off your back.โ
Quickly she grabbed him around the legs, and pulled him into safety.
That was the past. What of the future of one of the most travelled 12-year-olds in Australia, who wants to be a lawyer when he grows up?
โHeโll have to settle down to schoolwork, as education is most important for a boy.โ
This story first appeared in The Weekly on March 1, 1967.