‘Rubbish’: Billionaire Clive Palmer swears on radio then abruptly hangs up

Billionaire Clive Palmer has used foul language to describe a newspaper, then abruptly hung up during an odd radio interview.

Billionaire Clive Palmer has given an odd radio interview in which he accused a Perth newspaper of reporting lies, swore on air, then abruptly hung up.

After it was reported that the mining magnate was planning to launch further legal action against West Australian Premier Mark McGowan, he quickly rubbished the story.

“We haven’t commenced any legal dispute against anybody, it’s just rubbish and another beat up by the press,” Mr Palmer told 6PR radio on Tuesday.

Asked what was going on, Mr Palmer replied: “I don’t know, you have to ask the reporter who wrote the story because you can search the federal register in the Federal Court or the Supreme Court of WA — there’s no cases by us against Mr McGowan at all at this stage.”

He then labelled The West Australian newspaper a “bulls**t” publication run by Kerry Stokes.

After he was asked to refrain from swearing and be careful about defamation, Mr Palmer then suddenly ended the interview.

“You just concluded our interview. Thanks for that, bye,” he said.

Clive Palmer says there are no court cases by him against Mark McGowan ‘at this stage’. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

The Premier later told reporters correspondence from Mr Palmer’s legal team were “matters for the lawyers to deal with”.

“This is what I have to deal with, this is what we have to deal with, this is what the state has to deal with. There’s lots of legal actions by this individual against the state,” Mr McGowan said.

“It’s very expensive for the state to have to deal with these things on an ongoing basis.

“But we won’t back down in standing up for the state’s interests against anybody, including those people who want to sue us for lots of money.

“This is an ongoing thing. It’s very frustrating and very difficult to deal with, but that’s the reality of what has occurred.”

It comes after Mr Palmer and the Premier sued each other for defamation in the NSW Federal Court over a series of public comments they made.

The trial heard evidence about Mr Palmer’s legal fight over the WA hard border, the Queenslander’s stalled iron ore project, arbitration between the parties, and the extraordinary legislation that was passed to block the mining magnate’s ability to claim almost $30bn in damages.

Justice Michael Lee finally delivered his judgment in the case this month, awarding $5000 in damages to Mr Palmer and $20,000 to the Premier, saying they had both failed with their defences.

WA Premier Mark McGowan says he is proud of what he did. Picture: Matt Jelonek/Getty Images

Ultimately, Justice Lee said “the game has not been worth the candle” as he criticised both parties.

“These proceedings have not only involved considerable expenditure by Mr Palmer and the taxpayers of WA but have also consumed considerable resources of the commonwealth and, importantly, diverted court time from resolving controversies of real importance to persons who have a pressing need to litigate,” he said.

“At a time when public resources devoted to courts are under strain, and judicial resources are stretched, one might think that only a significant interference or attack causing real reputational damage and significant hurt to feelings should be subject of an action for defamation by a political figure.”

After the verdict was handed down, Mr McGowan told reporters he did what he had to do to protect the state.

“I will go to my grave proud of what we did,” he said.

“I actually think it (the legislation) was one of the finest moments – both that and the hard border – of recent WA history that we were able to defend and protect the state from those things.”

Justice Lee said “the game has not been worth the candle”. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Mr Palmer posted on social media after the decision was handed down.

“Today’s judgment in Sydney from Justice Michael Lee revealed that Mark McGowan and (Attorney-General) John Quigley plotted between themselves with late night texts to have legislation changed,’’ Mr Palmer said.

“It is highly disturbing that this is how the WA government acts.”

Mr Palmer began the legal proceedings in August 2020, alleging six defamatory publications were made between July 31 and August 14 that year.

The following month, Mr McGowan filed a cross-claim, suing Mr Palmer in respect of nine alleged defamatory publications.

During the trial, it was revealed Mr McGowan exchanged private text messages with Mr Stokes about the Queenslander.

The newspaper also ran images of Mr Palmer appearing as a cane toad and a cockroach, prompting Mr McGowan to thank Mr Stokes for the “marvellous front pages”.