Clive Palmer’s criminal hearing drags on

Clive Palmer opened his bid to block criminal charges against him by saying he didn’t want to waste court resources and time.

Clive Palmer, pictured last month, is back in the courtroom this week. Picture: Liam Kidston

Clive Palmer opened his bid to block criminal charges against him by saying he didn’t want to waste court resources and time.

It seemed ironic given that the various parties in a legal dispute before the Supreme Court in Brisbane had spent the first 40 minutes of the three-day hearing arguing over who should go first.

“We’ve wasted quite enough time as it is,” Justice Peter Callaghan said.

It was unclear exactly to who or what the judge was specifically referring. It may have been what he described as a “mess of paperwork” filed in the civil case or the six months spent in various hearings to get the matter ready for trial.

Justice Callaghan may also have been referring to the four years since the charges brought against Mr Palmer were first laid by the corporate watchdog, or the decade since the alleged events took place.

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission alleges Mr Palmer, the United Australia Party’s lead Senate candidate in Queensland for the federal election, breached corporate law in 2012 when he announced a takeover of the body corporate ­behind his Sunshine Coast resort but failed to follow through.

ASIC also alleges Mr Palmer breached his duties as director of Mineralogy and committed fraud by using money from a joint account held with subsidiaries of his Chinese mining business partner CITIC to fund the 2013 federal election campaign for his Palmer United Party, as it was then known.

The billionaire businessman has denied his actions were inappropriate and has argued at various stages that the charges are a political conspiracy and a breach of human rights.

Justice Callaghan has been tasked with sifting through the paperwork, legal precedents and oral arguments to decide whether to grant a summary judgment that would effectively end the prosecution against Mr Palmer in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

Mr Palmer argued on Monday that the hearing of his summary judgment application, which asks for a declaration from the court that the criminal case against him is an abuse of process and should be permanently stayed, should proceed first.

After a morning of argument, the application for the summary judgment went first.

Central to Mr Palmer’s claim is a legal victory over CITIC in the Supreme Court in 2015 in which Justice David Jackson ­declared the joint account from which Mr Palmer moved money, but ultimately repaid in 2013, was not held in trust by Mineralogy.

Mr Palmer’s lawyers say the decision by a judge should trump ASIC’s charges based on the same issue that would ultimately be decided by a jury.