Five years ago, Clive Palmer was handing out free luxury cars and overseas holidays to workers at his Queensland nickel refinery.
Now some of those same workers will be joining a list of creditors to ensure they get redundancy payouts from the self-proclaimed billionaire's beleaguered enterprise.
Administrators for the federal MP's company, Queensland Nickel (QNI), moved in on Monday after 237 workers at its refinery near Townsville were told their jobs were gone.
The Australian Workers Union says the bean counters have painted a "pretty spooky" picture of the company's financial position in preliminary meetings.
The company does not have the cash to pay out entitlements, it's about three months behind in superannuation payments, and it has debts of about $70 million, AWU secretary Ben Swan told AAP on Tuesday.
Sacked workers who are owed money are planning to list themselves as creditors ahead of a meeting expected to go ahead in Townsville next week.
It's a far cry from the scenes of largesse Mr Palmer presided over just before Christmas in 2010.
He arrived by plane bearing goodies that included 55 Mercedes-Benz cars and 750 holidays at luxury resorts in Fiji and Australia for the staff he credited with turning the refinery's fortunes around in stunning fashion.
On Tuesday, the federal MP continued to point to the dramatic drop in the price of nickel as a primary reason for the job cuts.
He also had things to say about how much his company has done for north Queensland.
"QNI has spent $4bn in North QLD since 2009. Liberal & Labor would be lucky to have spent that combined," he wrote on Twitter.
He again defended using the business to bankroll the Palmer United Party to the tune of more than $20 million, saying he could have pocketed that cash but instead used it to campaign on issues for the greater good.
"In 2013, I could have received $15m as a dividend from QNI. Instead it was donated to PUP which mandated a reduction in electricity prices," he tweeted.
The Queensland government is holding fast-tracked talks on job creation in Townsville this week, after refusing Mr Palmer's request last year to guarantee a $35 million loan to help the cash-strapped refinery.
On Tuesday, the federal government revealed it also rebuffed a request for a loan guarantee.
"We're not in the practice of bailing out private companies," Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg said.
The AWU says affected workers are anxiously awaiting a clearer picture of Queensland Nickel's position.
Asked if he believed the company's assurances that it could trade out of its woes, Mr Swan said: "I'm not in a position to answer that."
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