Clive Palmer launches legal bid to block deregulation in Queensland

CLIVE Palmer has launched action to block possible deregistration of his party in Queensland amid questions over a membership list.

CLIVE Palmer has launched legal action to block the possible de­registration of his fledgling party in Queensland, amid mounting questions over the legitimacy of a membership list needed to keep its official status after his two state MPs quit the party.

Just weeks after boasting of thousands of paid-up Palmer United Party members in Queensland, the federal MP is also trying to stop Electoral Commission Queensland ­officers requiring people on the list to confirm that they are members of the party. The legal action, filed late on Thursday in the ­Supreme Court in Brisbane, follows reve­l­ations that a PUP membership list supplied last week to the commission contained names of people who had never formally joined or had since resigned.

The PUP must prove it has 500 members to maintain its polit­ical registration in Queensland, after it lost its status as a parliamentary party with the resignations of MPs Alex Douglas and Carl Judge — both defectors from the Liberal National Party.

Under the vetting process, the ECQ contacted each person by mail, asking them to write back and confirm their membership.

Mr Palmer, who said last week that the requirement to provide a membership list was an attack on “freedom of association’’, has claimed in the legal action that he feared the PUP membership would not meet the November 17 deadline and could be deregistered ahead of a looming state election.

“I am concerned that if the ­respondent does not receive res­ponses from at least 500 members of the PUP who are Queensland electors by Monday, 17 November, 2014, that it will determine that it is not satisfied that PUP does not have at least 500 members who are electors and proceed to cancel the registration of the PUP,’’ he says in the legal action.

“The PUP intends to contest a number of seats whenever the election is called. It is critically important to the PUP, in such endeavour, to remain as a political party.’’ The state election is due to be held by June, but a date is expected to be announced by Premier Campbell Newman early in the new year.

PUP supplied a list of 659 members, with its national director, Peter Burke, admitting that the party’s executive last month had voted to waive any outstanding membership fees and had automatically ­renewed the membership of each party member.

Mr Burke said members had complained of “privacy and inconvenience issues’’ around being contacted by the ECQ over their membership.

In his claim, Mr Palmer said he believed Mr Newman might be “influenced’’ in the timing of the election by the Senate inquiry into the Queensland government that was initiated by PUP.

Last month, The Australian ­revealed that some people who had resigned from PUP were being included on a list that was to be supplied to the ECQ.