Campbell Newman inquiry may backfire on Clive Palmer

THE Greens will use the Clive Palmer-led inquiry into the Queensland government to probe his coal holdings and nickel refinery.

THE Greens have outman­oeuvred Clive Palmer and Labor and will use the Palmer-initiated Senate inquiry into the Queensland government to examine the environmental impact of the federal MP’s own coal holdings and polluting nickel refinery.

The minor party will also put the former Queensland Labor government’s approvals regime for coal-seam gas projects under the microscope, potentially embarrassing the ALP, which supported the inquiry.

The backing of the Greens was crucial to the Palmer United Party’s third attempt to secure a Senate investi­gation into all ­aspects of Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s Liberal Nat­ional Party government.

Greens senator for Queensland Larissa Waters denied her party had been caught up in what the Abbott government has dubbed Mr Palmer’s “personal vendetta’’ against Mr Newman.

“The terms of reference that we’ve had included will ensure that we can look at not just the Newman government’s environmental track record but the dodgy coal-seam gas approvals under the Bligh (Labor) government, and also Mr Palmer’s own activities with his mega mines in the Galilee and his Yabulu refinery on the shores of the Great Barrier Reef,’’ Senator Waters said.

Yabula is Australia’s highest emitting nickel refinery.

The Newman government is taking legal advice on the inquiry, and is expected to turn the tables on PUP and use the Senate probe to retaliate and dump on Mr Palmer and Labor.

Mr Newman is on holidays but the Premier has told colleagues he wants to take on inquisitor-in-chief, PUP Senate leader Glenn Lazarus, and will front the inquiry.

“We’re pretty much dealing with an unknown and we need to look at what the scope of the inquiry is, what powers it will have,’’ Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney said.

“But none of us pretends that it’s anything else than a vengeful vendetta that’s been set up to provide Clive Palmer with an opportunity for revenge.’’

Federal Attorney-General and Queensland LNP senator George Brandis, who spoke to Mr Newman yesterday, said the inquiry was “atrocious and a very cynical abuse of process’’.

“As a matter of politics, convention and probably law, what was done by the Labor Party, the Greens and the Palmer party in the Senate yesterday was a disgrace,’’ he said.

University of Sydney constitutional law professor Anne Twomey said if the inquiry sought to compel state witnesses to appear and produce documents, there would be “no doubt the Queensland government would bring an action and it would go to the High Court’’.

Any challenge would likely look at the powers of parliamentary committees and aspects of federalism. “There’s this thing called the Melbourne Corporation doctrine, which basically says the commonwealth can’t interfere in the capacity of the state to govern and its ability to fulfil its constitutional functions,’’ she said.

The inquiry will look at Queensland’s use of commonwealth funds, whether any money has been used for state government advertising or party-political purposes, the administration of the Queensland courts and the judicial system, and resource sector approvals.

Mr Palmer was once the LNP’s biggest donor and a significant behind-the-scenes player but his relationship with the state gov-­ernment soured after it failed to give him a mandate to build a 500km railway line from the Galilee Basin in central Queensland to the coal port of Abbot Point.

The committee will travel around Queensland, taking evidence in the lead-up to next year’s state election.

Senator Waters, who will sit on the five-member committee, said the terms of reference were carefully drafted “so that they can include the whole list of assaults that the Newman government has wrought on Queensland’’.

The terms, she said, would also allow the Greens to “examine the development approval process as it pertains to Clive Palmer’s operations, so we sought to approach this with an even hand and make sure the environmental issues could be ventilated no matter which party was in power’’.

Asked if the Greens would seek to call Mr Palmer, Senator Waters said: “We’ll take advice on the legal scope of the powers of the Senate committee to call witnesses.’’

ALP state leader Annastacia Palaszczuk backed the inquiry but said it was a decision of Senate.

Mr Palmer yesterday denied the inquiry was to settle old scores. “If there is nothing that the Newman government has done to upset anyone, or breach the law themselves, then they have nothing to worry about,’’ he told Sunshine Coast radio.