Palmer-McGowan defamation case is a senseless, infuriating spectacle

What an infuriating spectacle the senseless defamation proceeding between billionaire pest Clive Palmer and WA Premier Mark McGowan is turning out to be.

The money, the time, the resources of the court – and the distraction: a mixture of petty politics and ego at a moment when we actually have a whole bunch of real problems to deal with.

Clive Palmer and Mark McGowan’s war of words has finally ended up in court. Credit: WAtoday

The Premier certainly didn’t start this fight but he has done almost nothing to mitigate it, inflaming things in the lead up to the March 2021 election for reasons including electoral advantage, secure in the knowledge the taxpayer would pick up the tab whatever the outcome.

The general principle is that a politician can have legal expenses met where an action arises in the course of their ministerial responsibilities, but the pursuit of defamation actions (for example Joe Hockey), and the defence of other private matters (for example Christian Porter) are not expenses to be covered by taxpayers.

Political parties have in the past set up reserve funds to which politicians contribute a portion of their salaries, to cover these sorts of contingencies.

A prudent pollie should be able to avoid meritless defamation actions because they can resort to something ordinary citizens cannot: the rolled gold protection of parliamentary privilege. It was Mr McGowan who chose to criticise Palmer outside the chamber.

The Premier has sought cover in the position that in the event of a win, any damages will be paid to consolidated revenue, but it remains to be seen if his prediction that Palmer will “write a big cheque” comes true when proceedings are said and done in the Federal Court in Sydney.

For his part, Palmer famously listed litigation as a hobby in his Who’s Who entry, and can afford to given he is now earning, reportedly, more than $600 million a year in royalties from Chinese giant Citic’s Sino Iron project in the Pilbara.

If he matched the record defamation payout in Australian history, the $2.9 million awarded to Geoffrey Rush – and surely on the evidence presented thus far he will not – it would amount to less than two days’ work for Palmer and not one soul in Australia would change their opinion of the Queenslander.

While Palmer’s decision to challenge WA’s hard border was the public trigger for the unpleasantness between the parties, there was also in 2020 the live possibility Palmer might apply his significant resources to a run in the March 2021 election.

His presence in other races has tended to harm Labor more than the coalition parties, so keeping him out of the race – or alternatively painting him as public enemy no.1 – was in Labor’s political interests.

Palmer has also been a long-term thorn in the side of WA governments of both stripes because of his prickly relationship with his Chinese business partners, something that has been a source of complaint to ministers for many years.

When the war of words began the Premier and Attorney-General John Quigley also knew – though the public did not – about the looming dispute over Palmer’s Balmoral South project, which subsequently became the subject of emergency legislation that Palmer tried (and failed) to overturn in the High Court.

Some of the testimony has been truly incredible.

“I was a bit frightened what they (the WA Government) might do to me, or my family,” Palmer told the court last month about the Balmoral South legislation.

“It means they could do anything to me.

“I thought about James Bond movies and a licence to kill. I didn’t expect governments to pass legislation like that in Australia.

“I thought about Nazi Germany and how that legislation was framed. I was racing all over the place.”

For his part, the Premier put the blame on Mr Palmer for threats against him, his family and his office, saying the billionaire “motivates and agitates these people into extreme action”.

“He promotes these ideas, encourages all these people to weaponise themselves physically against my family,” Mr McGowan said.

“Things like threaten to kill me and my family, threaten to kill my children, things like ram their cars into power poles outside my home.

“You may think I’m joking, but driving armoured cars to my office with fake machine guns on top, things like send packages to my wife with white powder in it, with threats to behead my children, things like leave multiple messages on my phone, threaten to kill me, to sniper-attack us, to hunt us down when I’m out of office.”

That behaviour is appalling and indefensible, but the timeline must be noted.

The Palmer-McGowan war of words happened through the middle of 2020, with Palmer’s defamation action launched in August and the Premier counter suing in September.

The first powder threat against McGowan’s office came on the eve of the election in March 2021 and intensified late last year after vaccination mandates were imposed by the Government.

Many of these threats, once made, have been briefed out by the Premier’s office to media so they can be publicly reported, a departure from the norm that such things are downplayed and kept quiet in the interests of security and not inspiring copycats.

Mr McGowan’s evidence resumes on Wednesday and we are yet to see text messages between him and Quigley that may yet reveal more of what went on behind the scenes.

But in the end this comes down to one of the country’s most popular and powerful politicians and one of its richest people each standing up in court claiming the other has hurt their feelings.

Justice Michael Lee should send them both to the hall of mirrors to have a good hard look at themselves.

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