The show sat Palmer in between Labor’s Human Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young to ensure there was plenty of conflict over the proposed mining tax.
He walked away from the program observing that Labor and the Greens were not close together in some of their views.
“I think the Greens don’t think there should be a mining industry, basically,” he told ILN.
On the coal industry response to the eventual election outcome, Palmer said people were shocked because Queensland voted very heavily for the Coalition.
He singled out independent Tony Windsor as the chink in the minority government’s armour over the mining tax.
“He’s the one that the industry should talk to and concentrate on,” he said.
“They only have to lose one vote and they lose the government.”
Windsor has resisted coal mining developments in the Gunnedah Basin and within his New South Wales electorate of New England.
But he has shown some concern about the mining tax.
Last week he told ABC radio he thought the MRRT was going to be included in the June 2011 Henry Review tax summit the independents bargained for.
Treasurer Wayne Swan is adamant the MRRT is off the agenda of the tax summit, in a similar vein to how he repeatedly stated the 40% tax rate would not be changed from its predecessor, the resources super-profits tax.
However, industry hopes to sway Windsor away from the government’s position on the mining tax might be premature.
When he publicly pledged support to the Gillard government last week, Windsor said a Labor minority government was more likely to serve the full three-year term.
He added that a government headed by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott would result in a quicker return to the polls.
Ex-Waratah Coal chief executive Peter Lynch also tuned into the television to see his former boss on the program.
He told ILN the worry was that the Greens Senator thought you could tap into the mining industry hard and there would be no collateral effect.
“They [the Greens] just don’t have any idea,” Lynch said.
“Labor is not much better.”
Lynch’s efforts helped underpin a vast chunk of the 7.4 billion tonnes of Waratah’s thermal coal resources in the Galilee Basin of Queensland.
But he resigned from Waratah in January and is now turning his attention to coal projects in Indonesia for Perth-based Altera Resources.
On Indonesia’s royalties regime, he said you know what you are getting upfront.
In the aftermath of the hung parliament election result, Fortescue Metals Group chief executive officer Andrew Forrest met with Windsor and fellow independent Rob Oakeshott to discuss the MRRT, but these efforts did not sway them over to the Coalition.
