Wang to leave mining company job

Clive Palmer's Australasian Resources will lose its managing director Dio Wang if his election as a WA senator is confirmed.

Palmer United Party senator Dio Wang

Dio Wang will resign as a mining company managing director if he is elected as a WA senator. (AAP)

Dio Wang will resign as a mining company managing director before taking up his West Australian Senate seat for the Palmer United Party (PUP).

Mr Wang is expected to be declared one of six WA senators elected when the electoral commission completes its counting of last Saturday's election re-run.

The 33-year-old civil engineer is managing director of Australasian Resources, a company 70 per cent owned by Clive Palmer.

Mr Palmer is the founder of PUP and the member for the Queensland federal seat of Fairfax.

Mr Wang was appointed chief executive of the company in July 2010 and became managing director in January 2012.

A spokesman for PUP said Mr Wang had made the decision on his own and he would formally step down once the Australian Electoral Commission finalised the election results later this month.

When elected to Fairfax, Mr Palmer lodged a lengthy list of his directorships and shares on the parliamentary pecuniary interests register.

The Queensland billionaire also abstained from voting on the carbon tax repeal legislation, which if passed by the Senate will save his resource companies millions of dollars a year.

The Australian Greens have called on all three PUP senators-elect - Mr Wang, Queensland's Glenn Lazarus and Tasmania's Jacqui Lambie - to follow Mr Palmer's lead and abstain from voting on the carbon and mining tax repeals to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

The government will need the votes of at least six crossbench senators to get its legislation passed.

The WA Senate election result is likely to give the Liberals three seats and one each to Labor, the Greens and PUP.

Australasian Resources is developing the Balmoral South iron ore project in the WA Pilbara region and has some nickel interests in WA.


Share

2 min read

Published

Updated

Source: AAP


Share this with family and friends


Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world