Fuel added to bitter electoral battle between Brough and Slipper as Palmer says he is speaking out to exonerate Joe Hockey
Clive Palmer says the Liberal National Party candidate Mal Brough directly asked him for money to fund the failed sexual harassment case against former Speaker Peter Slipper.
The mining magnate says he has dropped the political bombshell because he wants to make it clear shadow treasurer Joe Hockey was not involved in the approach over the case involving Slipper's former aide James Ashby.
"I think I've got a moral duty and a responsibility to Mr Hockey, his family and indeed the Liberal Party to make it absolutely clear that Mr Hockey played no role in these discussions," Palmer told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.
"He walked past at the end of our discussion with Mal Brough and merely sat down to have a coffee."
Palmer said while no exact figure was discussed with Brough, who is running against Slipper in the Queensland seat of Fisher, he understood the costs would be at least $200,000.
"He [Brough] said to me we needed to destroy Peter Slipper," Palmer said of the April 2012 meeting at his Sunshine Coast resort.
"He said he had all the evidence to put Peter Slipper away for a very long time."
Slipper told parliament in June that Brough and Hockey had approached Palmer to pay the legal fees of Slipper's former aide James Ashby.
Ashby and his lawyer Michael Harmer have denied any third party had helped fund his sexual harassment case against Slipper.
"For abundant clarity, at no stage did James Ashby ask Mal Brough, or indeed anyone, to fund his case," a spokesman for Ashby said in a statement on Thursday.
"Further, as has been on the public record for some time, there is no third party funding his case."
The latest claims were just another chapter "in the saga which is being played out in the context of an electoral battle for the seat of Fisher", he said.
Hockey has previously denied Slipper's claim that he had approached Palmer to fund the case. Hockey told parliament he had never met Ashby and had never raised the matter with Palmer over a cup of coffee.
Slipper had been accused of sexually harassing Ashby and was charged with misusing expenses. He resigned as Speaker over offensive text messages sent to Ashby, revealed in court documents.
The sexual harassment case was thrown out by Federal Court Justice Stephen Rares, who found Ashby's predominant purpose for bringing the case was to pursue a political attack against his former boss. Ashby has appealed.
