Clive Palmer skirts WA to log $30bn claim

The billionaire has blindsided Western Australia in Queensland’s Supreme Court.

Clive Palmer on Queensland’s Gold Coast this week. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

The West Australian government believes it can still kill off a potentially “cataclysmic” $30bn legal action from Clive Palmer, despite the billionaire blindsiding the state in Queensland’s Supreme Court.

Mr Palmer on Thursday succeeded in registering two critical arbitration awards against WA through an expedited court hearing in Brisbane, complicating the state government’s hopes of legislating the death of the disputes.

Mr Palmer and his legal team had been seeking to urgently register the arbitrations since the WA Attorney-General announced the unprecedented bill to kill off Mr Palmer’s rights to sue the state over his iron ore assets in the Pilbara.

A spokesman for WA Premier Mark McGowan confirmed that the Supreme Court order was obtained without notice to the state.

The formal court registration of the arbitration, Mr Palmer said, meant the proposed legislation could not be enacted. “Now that the awards have been registered in the Queensland Supreme Court, there is no purpose to continue the draconian and disgraceful legislation,” he said. “Even if (WA Attorney-General) John Quigley has the legislation passed in parliament, it will be invalid under our Constitution.”

Mr Quigley on Tuesday night unveiled an extraordinary bill that when passed would strip Mr Palmer of his ability to sue the state in a dispute over Mr Palmer’s Balmoral South iron ore project. WA has previously lost two arbitration proceedings over the dispute, and a third arbitration in November was to decide on the damages payable to Mr Palmer.

The bill was deliberately announced at 5pm Perth time on Tuesday to ensure all courts around the country were closed, which would prevent Mr Palmer from formally registering the ­arbitration in a court.

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Quig­ley said it was Mr Palmer’s failure to register his arbitration claims that had opened the door for the state to enact the legislation.

“Once you get an award in ­arbitration, you can go and register it in a court. You apply to the court to register it. What he’s doing now, too late, is trying to register it,” Mr Quigley told ABC radio.

“Had he got a whisper of what the government was up to last week, or even Monday or Tuesday morning, had he got a whisper and made his move to the court, then we would have been in all sorts of difficulty.

“Once a matter is before the courts, the independence of the courts are protected by chapter three (of the Constitution).”

The bill passed WA’s lower house on Wednesday and was on track to pass the upper house on Thursday night, despite several members calling for extra time to scrutinise it.

The spokesman for Mr McGowan said the state’s lawyers had designed the bill to prepare for the possibility that Mr Palmer would register the arbitration in court, although he flagged the government may challenge the legality of that registration. “It was obtained without any notice to the state, which is unusual. The state is seeking advice about whether the order can be set aside or appealed on that basis,” he said.

Mr Palmer had also attempted to register the arbitration awards in the NSW Supreme Court, but the matter was not listed to be heard until 28 August.

The extraordinary damages claim has prompted Mr McGowan to warn that a win by Mr Palmer could bankrupt the state and force the closure of hospitals, schools and police stations.

As the bill continued to be debated in parliament, Mr McGowan revealed that the previous Barnett government had received legal advice in 2014 from the state solicitor’s office to appeal against Mr Palmer’s arbitration victory.

Mr McGowan said the current crisis could have been avoided if the advice was followed, but the decision was never appealed.

The bill is the first time a WA government has set out to comprehensively change the terms of a so-called state agreement, a piece of legislation that governs large-scale projects in the state.

Mr Palmer had warned that the attempt to change his state agreement would devalue other such agreements and deter investment in the state, but Mr Quig­ley yesterday revealed the Premier had contacted big miners, including BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group. “They are all perfectly comfortable with this legislation. None of them sees it as a threat, none of them sees it as creating a precedent or a sovereign risk,” Mr Quigley said.