Queensland court deals Clive Palmer serious blow in legal war with WA

Businessman Clive Palmer has been dealt another blow in his legal pursuit of $28 billion he claims the WA government owes him over a stalled iron ore project.

The Queensland Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a move by the billionaire's companies to register an arbitration decision, which could have prevented emergency legislation passed by the WA Parliament which cancelled out his massive claim.

Clive Palmer and Mark McGowan.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/Trevor Collens

The dispute relates to former WA Premier Colin Barnett's 2012 refusal to formally assess the proposed Balmoral South iron ore mine 80 kilometres south-west of Karratha in WA's Pilbara region, which Mr Palmer claims breached a state agreement inked in 2002.

Mr Palmer's company Mineralogy had the matter sent to an independent arbitrator, which ruled against the government, a decision which has sparked further litigation.

It is this arbitration decision Mr Palmer's companies were attempting to register in Queensland's Supreme Court.

But Justice Glenn Martin set aside the registration, which Mr Palmer hoped would have protected his claims against the McGowan government's 'anti-Palmer' legislation, finding they should have served notice on the WA government.

"[Mr Palmer's companies] Mineralogy and IM [International Minerals] were not entitled to bring this application without having served WA," he said in a written judgement delivered in Brisbane on Wednesday morning.

"WA is entitled to have the order set aside."

Justice Martin said the companies "presented an inaccurate summary of the relevant law" and a "misleading picture" of the extent to which WA complied with the arbitration awards.

He also described the McGowan government's anti-Palmer legislation using a number of colourful analogies, likening it to the defence of Rome in its victory over Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War in 146BC.

"A common, but erroneous, story emerged in the 19th century in which it was asserted that the Romans had sowed salt into the soil so that nothing would ever grow there again," Justice Martin wrote.

"WA is not Rome. And Mineralogy is not Carthage. But the authors of the [anti-Palmer legislation] might be thought to have had the same level of obliteration in mind when that Act was drafted."

He pondered whether WA's anti-Palmer legislation was "an unpleasant smell in the room" and said a provision allowing the government to amend the law by regulations was "the mother of all Henry VIII clauses".

Mr Palmer is still pursuing his attempt to have the legislation, which would rub out any of his claims against the state government, ruled unconstitutional by the High Court.

Premier Mark McGowan and the businessman are also suing each other for defamation over comments they fired at each other about the dispute.