Mining magnate Clive Palmer has backed away from inflammatory comments he made regarding the Green Party and CIA involvement, Fairfax reports.
Mr Palmer yesterday accused the Greens of taking money from the Rockefeller Foundation, which he described as a CIA front organisation that channels funds to environmental groups.
Greens leader Bob Brown said Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman should repudiate comments made by Mr Palmer.
Senator Brown says the false claims by Mr Palmer, the single largest donor to the LNP, are very serious, and Mr Newman needs to repudiate what he called a nasty attack.
"They are very serious accusations made by a person who is going to be a chief confidant and adviser to Campbell Newman were he to become premier on Saturday," Senator Brown said, according to Nine News.
Mr Palmer has accused the Australian Greens of being in cahoots with a "foreign power" and the CIA to eat away at Australia's economic advantage, before backing away from the claims in an inteview with Fairfax.
Mr Palmer said he didn't think Mr Brown would be 'associated with foreign groups' and that a lot of Greens want to do the best thing "I disagree with them. Maybe I'm not 100 per cent right and I'm sure they're not 100 per cent right. I'm trying to broaden the debate."
'NO CONSPIRACY THEORIST'
Mr Palmer launched an extraordinary attack on the Greens and environmentalists during a press conference on Tuesday, saying they were being funded by the US spy agency to undermine Australia's national economy.
A leaked plan by an Australian anti-coal group to thwart coal projects is proof of the accusation, he says.
Mr Palmer said the document showed the anti-coal group was funded by the US Rockefeller Foundation, an American philanthropic group he described as a conduit of the CIA and the US government.
The alliance was trying to undermine the Australian economy and offset the geographic advantage of Australia's proximity to Asia.
"This is a serious matter indeed because it goes to the political independence of all Australians," he told journalists on Friday.
"We don't want domination by a foreign power, and that's what we've got here."
Asked what the US agenda was, Mr Palmer said, "I think they want to promote their economies at the expense of ours."
He said all Greens candidates should resign if they were being funded by a foreign political power.
"It's tantamount to treason, and something needs to be done about it."
Queensland anti-coal seam gas activist Drew Hutton, who is named in the document as part of an advisory group, was a puppet of the Americans, he said.
"Drew Hutton is a tool of the US government and Rockefeller, and so are the Greens and everything they say. It's as simple as that," he told reporters.
Mr Palmer said he was not a conspiracy theorist because "it's here in black and white".
"You only have to look at this secret budget which was passed by (the US) Congress last year, bigger than our whole national economy ... the CIA's got to ensure that.
"You only have to read the reports to US Congress where the CIA reported to the president that their role was to ensure the US competitive advantage and economic advantages.
"That's how you know it's funded by the CIA."
Mr Palmer had called the press conference to announce that he would not seek a High Court challenge against the federal government's mining tax.
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