Clive Palmer says he was knocked out for about 20 seconds when he fell during a rehearsal for his United Australia Party campaign launch.

The billionaire was taken to hospital from yesterday's rehearsal on the Sunshine Coast after tripping on the stage.

"I found at 68 I couldn't jump as high as I could at 64," he told Sky News on Saturday. 

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"I hit the platform on the side rather than on top and fell backwards, hit my head, was knocked unconscious for 20 seconds."

Mr Palmer said "everything was fine" when he woke up but the people around him urged him to get checked out.

"I went and got a brain scan, which was very reassuring and found that I had a brain but that it wasn't damaged," he said.

"So I'm okay, everything's fine."

It was the big-spending mining magnate's second stumble in recent weeks, having tripped as he left the stage following his National Press Club address on April 7.

Despite the stumble, he still managed to kick off the $70 million campaign today under a huge tent at his Coolum golf resort.

Hundreds of yellow-shirt-clad supporters gathered to hear from Mr Palmer and UAP leader Craig Kelly, who said the party would push for the enactment of a bill of rights.

"Save Australia, we must. Save Australia, we will," Mr Palmer said.

Mr Palmer, the party founder and chairman, has pledged to put the Liberals, Labor and Greens last on how-to-vote cards.

He is running for the Senate this year, having failed to return to Parliament in 2019 despite his party spending more than $80 million on its campaign, most of which came from Mr Palmer's Mineralogy company.

The massive political spending, vastly outstripping even the major parties, has drawn criticism from some corners.

The "cake" was made from frozen fruit juice, sweet potatoes, carrots and sugar cane and it lasted about 15 minutes once giant panda mama Mei Xiang and her cub Xiao Qi Ji got hold of it.

Washington's Smithsonian's National Zoo's most famous tenants had an enthusiastic breakfast on Saturday in front of adoring crowds as the zoo celebrated 50 years of its iconic panda exchange agreement with the Chinese government.

Xiao Qi Ji’s father Tian Tian largely sat out the morning festivities, munching bamboo in a neighbouring enclosure with the sounds of his chomping clearly audible during a statement by Chinese ambassador Qin Gang. The ambassador praised the bears as “a symbol of the friendship” between the nations.

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Pandas are almost entirely solitary by nature, and in the wild Tian Tian would probably never even meet his child. He received a similar cake for lunch.

In addition to hailing the 1972 agreement sparked by President Richard Nixon's landmark visit to China, Saturday's celebration also highlighted the success of the global giant panda breeding program, which has helped bring the bears back from the brink of extinction.

Xiao Qi Ji's birth in August 2020 was hailed as a near miracle, due to Mei Xiang's advanced age and the fact that zoo staff performed the artificial insemination procedure under tight restrictions shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic shut the entire zoo.

At age 22, Mei Xiang was the oldest giant panda to successfully give birth in the United States.

Normally they would have used a combination of frozen sperm and fresh semen extracted from Tian Tian.

But in order to minimise the number of close-quarters medical procedures, zoo officials used only frozen semen.

“It was definitely a long-shot pregnancy,” said Bryan Amaral, the zoo's senior curator for mammals.

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In honour of that long shot, the now 20-month-old cub was given a name that translates as "little miracle".

His birth in mid-pandemic sparked a fresh wave of panda-mania, with viewership on the zoo's panda-cam livestream spiking by 1,200 percent.

“I know how passionate people are about pandas," Mr Amaral said.

“I'm not surprised by that passion at all.”

Sure enough, crowds started streaming straight for the panda section at 8am when the zoo opened.

Sisters Lorelai and Everley Greenwell, age six and five, ran toward the enclosure chanting “Pandas! Pandas!”

They watched the cub tumble around, try to wrestle his mum and tear the zero off the giant 50 emblazoned on the ice cake.

“They knew this was coming,” said their mother Kayleigh Greenwell of Mount Ranier, Maryland, said of her girls.

“We've been talking about it all week.”

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The zoo's original 1972 panda pair, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were star attractions at the zoo for decades, but panda pregnancies are notoriously tricky and none of their cubs survived.

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived in 2000, and the pair has successfully birthed three other cubs: Tai Shan, Bao Bao and Bei Bei – also by artificial insemination. All were transported to China at age four, under terms of the zoo’s agreement with the Chinese government.

Similar agreements with zoos around the world have helped revitalise the giant panda population. Down to just over 1000 bears in the 1980s, the species has since been removed from the lists of animals in danger of extinction.

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An Adelaide family has been left devastated after a fire tore through their northern suburbs warehouse and factory.

More than a decade of work went up in flames, as firefighters swarmed Trigg Street, Blair Athol in the city's northern suburbs just before 6.30pm last night.

Dozens of nearby residents gathered as one explosion after another shook the street.

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Among those watching on in shock was the businesses owner, who had been inside just half an hour earlier.

"He would have gone to try to extinguish that small fire but in minutes it could have turned big and he would have been trapped inside," the owner's brother-in-law, Rajesh Kumar, said.

Fire crews attacked the flames from the ground and in the air but their efforts were hampered by a heavy fuel load and other hidden dangers within the building.

In the light of day, the extent of the damage became clear: nothing left of Vita Foods, which imports goods from India and supplies retailers around the country.

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Mr Kumar said this was "such a big loss".

"It is all gone… within hours everything has collapsed," he said.

The business had been operating in the area for 13 years.

The owner will need to rebuild from the ground up, with the damage bill estimated at more than a million dollars.

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However, it is not just the building and everything inside that has been destroyed.

With no factory or stock, the owner says he can't operate and will lose revenue.

He is asking his customers to stand by him until he can rebuild.

"The financial impact is there but the mental trauma is the biggest," Mr Kumar said.

"I think it'll take ages for us to recover from that mental trauma."

Fire investigators have deemed the blaze accidental and possibly linked to an electrical fault.

A man has been charged after seven puppies were stolen from a family home in Adelaide.

The home on Lyle Street, Morphett Vale, was broken into and seven Staffordshire-cross-Pitbull puppies were stolen along with other belongings sometime between 4pm on April 13 and 5pm on April 14.

Police launched an investigation into the incident to try to retrieve the young dogs.

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A home at Christies Beach was searched early this morning and two of the puppies were found.

A third puppy was handed into the local police station at about 4pm and returned to the owner.

A 37-year-old man was arrested and charged with serious criminal trespass and theft.

He was bailed and will appear at court next month.

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Police are still searching for the other four puppies.

Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.