Coronavirus: Clive Palmer challenge to WA border closure delayed

Clive Palmer’s challenge to Western Australia’s closed border­ has been delayed in the Federal Court.

Clive Palmer. Picture: Stewart McLean

Clive Palmer’s challenge to Western Australia’s closed border­ has been delayed in the Federal Court, in part because an expert witness is busy dealing with the coronavirus crisis in Victoria.

Federal Court Justice Darryl Rangiah adjourned the case on Thursday for a two-day hearing on July 27 and 28 after explaining that public health expert Kamalini Lokuge had been called to Victoria on July 1 by the chief medical officer to help with the response to the outbreaks there.

Justice Rangiah described Associate Professor Lokuge’s work in Victoria as critical. She would need to devote about 10 hours to preparing for a conference in Mr Palmer’s case and July 20 was the earliest she would be able to do that.

Professor Lokuge is an epidemiologist for international health organisations with rare expertise in public health responses to humanitarian crises.

She leads the humanitarian research program at the Australian National University’s research school of public health.

She was described at Thursday’s Federal Court hearing as one of a very small number of people in Australia with the skills to help authorities respond to the recent outbreaks of coronavirus in Victoria.

Mr Palmer, a billionaire miner, objects to the McGowan government’s closed border because he has business interests in WA and wants permission to go there.

Once the facts of the case are established in the Federal Court, it will be heard in the High Court.

The commonwealth has sided with Mr Palmer in opposing WA’s interstate border restrictions.