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Mr Rice, a former bankrupt, has since re-emerged as the developer of the proposed Station Hotel in the suburb of Officer in Melbourne’s outer south-east, where he has drawn the ire of anti-gambling campaigners over his plans to install 80 new poker machines there.

He has rejected accusations of wrongdoing in the Gold Coast property deal, and said Mr Rose had consistently refused to acknowledge the role the global financial crisis played in the collapse of their asset prices.

Mr Rice said he believed Mr Rose’s allegations were part of a decade-old campaign against him, and said they were being raised in an underhanded bid to “muddy my name” and derail his application for the pokies-owning pub.

“It wouldn’t matter if I was building a childcare centre there. I could be building a church there. I could be building a lost dogs’ shelter,” he said.

“It’s at the point that this is not even about the application anymore – it’s about John Rose and what happened on the Gold Coast 10 years ago.”

The MP’s police complaint relates to a complex series of related property deals on the Gold Coast in 2007 involving a company, 147 Hedges Avenue Pty Ltd, of which Mr Rose and Mr Rice were co-directors.

Mr Rose was the inventor of the iconic “Stackhat” safety helmet in the 1980s, and a self-made millionaire, before being encouraged by Mr Rice to invest with him.

Mr Rose alleges that $4.8 million of his money went missing from the account of 147 Hedges Avenue Pty Ltd.

An account receipt from March 30, 2007, shows $4.8 million being drawn from under the name of Mr Rice’s wife by 147 Hedges, despite her not being a director of the company.

“I trusted him with everything I had,” said Mr Rose. “I’m old-school, I suppose. My word means everything to me and I trusted him to be the same. That’s why I didn’t ask to see contracts.”

Mr Rice denies the accusations. He said the receipts related to a legal trust account, and that money was never moved from the trust account into his wife’s name. He says the mention of his wife’s name on a receipt for a $4.8 million transaction was a mistake by his lawyers.

“Mr Rose is disenchanted. He wants to blame anybody but his own decisions,” he said. “The $4.8 million he lost was his 50 per cent of the business venture.”

Mr Rice last week obtained a temporary intervention order from the Dandenong Magistrates Court against Mr Rose, after Mr Rose was seen driving his ute through Officer with an anti-gambling billboard featuring an image of Mr Rice.

Mr Rice's bid for 80 poker machines at the Station Hotel has been rejected by Cardinia Shire councillors, who said the extra pokies would have a detrimental effect on the community. The application was also knocked back by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, and another appeal is now under way before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.