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| Palmer United Party chief of staff James McDonald has abruptly stood down as a director of Queensland Nickel Sales. |
Until last Sunday, James McDonald and Clive Mensink were the directors of Queensland Nickel Sales Pty Ltd (QNS), a company first registered in 1972. However McDonald's removal was only made official on Tuesday, one day after it was revealed that QNS had replaced Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd (QN) as the manager of the stricken nickel plant. QN has been controlled by FTI's John Park since January 18 when he was appointed voluntary administrator (VA).
McDonald, who is Palmer's current chief of staff, became a director of QNS in May 2015, joining Palmer's nephew Mensink, Palmer and another PUP loyalist, Phillip Collins on the QNS board.
McDonald's Linked In profile indicates he has extensive experience in organising road shows for IPOs and events management. It also states that he was global marketing director for Blue Star Line until October 2014. Before taking over from Collins as Palmer's chief of staff he was the PUP's lead South Australian candidate for the Senate.
Mensink is also a director of QN, QNI Metals and QNI Resources, the latter pair of companies being the joint venture partners which own the Yabulu refinery and its related infrastructure and assets. Putting QNS in charge of Yabulu's operations and removing McDonald means Mensink is again in sole control of the operations and no longer subservient to the authority of external VAs.
He and the other three directors of QNS became two only recently. Collins resigned on December 31, 2015 and Palmer resigned on January 10. Eight days later Park was appointed VA of QN, which employs the Yabulu workforce and until yesterday managed the refinery operations. Crucially, QN does not own any significant assets. The stage was set for the VA to be sidelined.