Clive Palmer ‘the worst Australian not in jail’: McGowan message

Private messages between WA premier and Attorney-General labelled billionaire Clive Palmer a ‘BFL: big fat liar’, court told.

Clive Palmer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan and his Attorney-General, John Quigley, privately ridiculed Clive Palmer as a “big fat liar” and “the worst Australian not in jail” as they worked to enact legislation to kill off the magnate’s $30bn legal action against the state.

Appearing before the Federal Court in Sydney, where Mr ­Palmer and Mr McGowan are suing each other for defamation, Mr Palmer’s lawyer grilled Mr McGowan over text message ­exchanges discussing their ­attempts to pass a law to end Mr Palmer’s legal claim.

Other messages starkly illustrated the at-times cosy relationship between the Premier and media magnate Kerry Stokes, with Mr McGowan personally alerting Mr Stokes to the state’s legal manoeuvring and later thanking him for the “marvellous” coverage from his The West Australian newspaper.

The messages also offered a surprising – and awkward – insight into the private life of Mr Quigley.

The text messages provided a rare glimpse into the raw and at times crude conversation of two of the state’s lawmakers, with Mr Quigley labelling Mr Palmer a “turd” and describing the legislation plan as one that would “drop the fat man on his big fat arse”. He also coined an acronym for Mr Palmer, labelling him the “BFL” or big fat liar.

WA premier Mark McGowan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

On the day the legislation was read into WA’s parliament in Aug­ust 2020, Mr McGowan sent Mr Quigley a message in which he called Mr Palmer “the worst Australian who is not in jail”.

In court, Mr McGowan said the statement was “probably exaggerated” and said he suspected there were worse people in the country who weren’t behind bars.

While he freely admitted to disliking Mr Palmer, he said he did not agree with the suggestion from Mr Palmer’s lawyer, Peter Gray SC, that he could not stand the billionaire, hated the fact he had twice won arbitration cases against the WA government and wanted to attack and discredit him in public as harshly and as often as he could.

Mr McGowan described the “BFL” exchange with Mr Quigley as “a piece of humour with a ­colleague”. “I thought it a funny play on the Roald Dahl character,” he said, referring to the story of the BFG – the big friendly giant – he had read to his children.

Appearing before the court late in the day, Mr Quigley ­described the exchange as “banter with a friend”.

The court also heard a message sent from Mr Quigley to Mr McGowan in which he said he had been awake since 4.15am thinking of ways to tackle the arbitration claim from Mr Palmer, including legislation that would contain “a poison pill for the fat man”. “Hey, are you glad me single, not making love in sweet hours before dawn, instead worrying how to defeat Clive,” Mr Quigley wrote.

Other messages read to the court included correspondence between Mr McGowan and Mr Stokes. Mr McGowan messaged the latter, flagging the legislation and promising to call him “to discuss”. Mr Stokes’ The West Australian then ran prominent front pages variously portraying Mr Palmer as the movie character Dr Evil, a cane toad and a cockroach.

After the legislation was fast-tracked through ’s parliament, Mr Stokes sent Mr McGowan a message of congratulations. “I don’t think anyone else could have achieved that legislation in the speed you did … The people are with you!” he said.

Mr McGowan then thanked Mr Stokes: “I appreciate the support enormously. All the mealy-mouthed tut-tutting about Palmer’s ‘rights’ makes me sick.”

Asked about that message, he said he was unhappy with “extreme political commentators from Sky News and the like” making out as if Mr Palmer’s rights to get $30bn were more important than 2.6 million West Australians who’d be burdened by the payout.