BRISBANE  -  For more than a decade, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has been the driving force behind plans to build Titanic II – a replica of the ill-fated ship that sank in 1912 with more than 2,200 people on board. Only about 700 survived, creating history as the world’s most disastrous voyage and the light bulb of an idea for a billionaire with an interest in cruising and cash to burn. Palmer first launched plans for Titanic II in 2012, and again in 2018. Six years later, he’s done it again, relaunching the project on Wednesday during a press briefing at Sydney Opera House against the backdrop of the city’s famed harbour. Once again, the question is why? “It’s a lot more fun to do the Titanic than it is to sit at home and count my money,” Palmer reportedly told local media with the blunt honesty of man who earns almost half a billion dollars in mining royalties every year. For Palmer the question is not how to earn money, but where to spend it. When he first floated his dream of building a more buoyant version of the Titanic more than a decade ago, the popular view was that he was rich and eccentric enough to do it. But headwinds of the pandemic hit, and the multimillion-dollar project was put on hold as ports closed and passengers reassessed their risk appetite for being quarantined at sea. Palmer, chairman of the Blue Star Line company behind the Titanic project, also had other issues on his agenda. In recent years he’s launched multiple court cases against state and federal governments. He took on the Western Australian state government over its decision to shut its borders during in the pandemic. Another High Court loss came when he sought billions of dollars in damages from the same state government over its decision to block his access to compensation over an iron ore project. He’s now taking that to an international tribunal, seeking almost $200 billion in damages from the federal government.