‘Appreciate your support’: WA Premier’s friendly texts with Kerry Stokes revealed in court

A defamation case brought by businessman Clive Palmer has revealed the mutual admiration shared by West Australian Premier Mark McGowan and one of Australia’s richest men, Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, in a rare insight into how power is used in the state.

Texts revealed in the Federal Court case also show “banter” in text messages between Mr McGowan and his Attorney-General in which they describe Mr Palmer as a “big fat liar,” a “turd” and “the fat man”.

Kerry Stokes is chairman of the Seven West media empire. Credit: WAtoday

Mr Palmer is suing Mr McGowan in the Federal Court for defamation after a 2020 war of words, which followed the state government’s legislation to block a $30 billion damages claim by the businessman. Mr Palmer claims the Premier painted him as an enemy of the people. Mr McGowan has counter-sued claiming Mr Palmer had depicted him as a criminal in interviews and advertisements.

But in an extraordinary cross-examination of Mr McGowan on Wednesday, a raft of personal texts from the Premier’s mobile were read out, including those to and from Mr Stokes, who owns the state’s only major newspaper, The West Australian.

The texts reveal the Premier gave Mr Stokes a heads-up that Labor was introducing extraordinary legislation to block Mr Palmer’s compensation claim over a stalled Pilbara iron ore project. The message was sent a minute before the law was introduced to WA Parliament on August 11, 2020.

A series of West Australian front pages in subsequent days depicted Mr Palmer as fictional character, Dr Evil as well as a cane toad and a cockroach.

Mr Palmer’s barrister Peter Gray SC read a series of exchanges between the premier and the mogul. In one, Mr Stokes congratulated the Premier and joked that the newspaper’s depiction of Mr Palmer as a cockroach could be sold as an item for his WA-based charity.

“Mark, well done,” Mr Stokes texted. “I think no one else could have achieved that legislation in the speed you did. Reckon the insect heads should make a Telethon sales item. People are with you!”

Mr McGowan responded, thanking Mr Stokes and describing the front pages as “marvellous”. He then joked that the The West Australian had “gone a bit soft”, followed by an emoji.

Mr McGowan’s text to Mr Stokes, as read by Mr Gray, went on to say the premier “appreciates the support enormously”. He also lamented “mealy-mouthed tut-tutting by some people” about Mr Palmer’s legal rights. This commentary, the premier wrote, “makes me sick”.

Mr McGowan later revealed he was referring to media commentators, particularly on Sky News, who were supporting Mr Palmer.

Mr Gray prefaced the Stokes messages by suggesting that the coverage received by Mr McGowan by The West Australian was extremely favourable at that time while Mr Palmer’s coverage was the opposite.

Mr Stokes’ political clout in the WA government has been revealed previously, when Mr McGowan’s former chief of staff Guy Houston personally forwarded requests from Mr Stokes for exemptions from WA’s hard border in April 2020. After Mr Houston left Mr McGowan’s office he took on a job at Mr Stokes’ private company Australian Capital Equity.

Other texts from the Premier were read aloud to the court, including discussions between Mr McGowan and WA Attorney-General John Quigley in the lead up to the Palmer legislation where they called the billionaire “Big Fat Liar” and “turd”.

One of the messages was sent in 2020 by Mr Quigley who told Mr McGowan he had been awake since 4.15am thinking of ways to beat “big fat Clive”. In the exchange, Mr Quigley described the legislation as a Trojan horse and a “poison pill for the fat man.”

Mr Quigley also asked Mr McGowan: “Hey, are you glad me single again, not making love in sweet hours before dawn, instead worrying how to defeat Clive.”

Mr Gray suggested this showed Mr Quigley was obsessed with defeating Mr Palmer, but the Premier said it was just a joking reference to Mr Quigley’s marital situation.

In another message, Mr Quigley said he was “looking forward to dumping on Palmer tomorrow... in a statesmanlike way”.

Mr McGowan described Mr Palmer in texts as a “big fat liar” and “the worst Australian who is not in jail”. In court, Mr McGowan admitted such names were nasty but were simply a bit of humour privately used between colleagues.

“I thought it was quite a funny play on the Roald Dahl character, the Big Friendly Giant,” he said.

Mr Quigley described the name-calling as “banter” between colleagues.

Mr Gray also attacked the speed with which the legislation was introduced and passed, asking the Premier if it was sneaky, underhanded and dishonourable to put it through parliament in 48 hours. Mr McGowan denied those descriptions.

Quizzed about his election promise to employ a “gold standard of transparency,” Mr McGowan said extraordinary situations sometime required extraordinary measures.

“Gold standard transparency doesn’t apply to every single thing you do,” he says.

The Palmer legislation and $30 billion damages claim stemmed from former WA premier Colin Barnett’s refusal in 2012 to formally assess a proposal by Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy to build an iron ore mine at the Balmoral South area 80 kilometres south-west of Karratha in the Pilbara.

Mr Palmer claims the state breached a state agreement inked in 2002 by refusing to assess the mine and entered into a lengthy arbitration process with the government. An arbitration process found the government had breached the agreement and that Mr Palmer was eligible for damages, and in 2020, Mr Palmer wrote to the state seeking more about $30 billion in damages and losses.

In mid-2020 the McGowan government began drafting the legislation to amend the state agreement to remove Mr Palmer’s ability to seek damages.

It was introduced to Parliament on August 11 and passed within days.

Mr Palmer failed in a High Court bid in 2021 to have the legislation thrown out.

During his evidence last month Mr Palmer told the court he thought the legislation gave Mr McGowan a literal “licence to kill” him.

Mr Stokes was approached for comment.

Outside court Mr McGowan said he could not comment about the case because of legal advice that told him not to.

Mr McGowan flew back home to Perth after his appearance and will head into seven days of self-imposed hotel quarantine upon his arrival.