Emergency bill to block Clive Palmer’s $30bn mine lawsuit

WA has introduced unprecedented legislation to protect the state from a $30bn-plus legal claim by Clive Palmer.

Clive Palmer is suing Western Australia over decisions by the former Barnett government. Picture: AAP

Western Australia has introduced unprecedented emergency legislation to protect the state from a whopping $30bn-plus legal claim from Clive Palmer.

The billionaire is suing WA over decisions by the Barnett government that hurt the former MP’s attempts to sell a proposed new iron ore mine in the Pilbara to Chinese interests.

Mr Palmer and the WA government were poised to enter arbitration earlier this year over the previous government’s rejection of two proposed developments for Mr Palmer’s Balmoral South iron ore project.

WA Attorney-General John Quigley told parliament late on Tuesday that the potential dam­ages bill was the equivalent of the state’s entire annual budget.

“Or put another way, if the cost of Mr Palmer’s claim was shared equally amongst all Western Australians, it would cost every man, woman and child in Western Australia more than $12,000,” Mr Quigley said.

“And Mr Palmer wants Western Australia to pay him $30bn at a time when the state is in a state of emergency dealing with a global pandemic — a pandemic which Mr Palmer has stated is a media beat-up — and at a time when the people of Western Australia are most in need of our public money.

“(I)t is not in the interests of Western Australians to be exposed to a risk of having to pay Mr Palmer billions of dollars.”

Mr Quigley claimed in parliament that the “rapacious” Mr Palmer was suing because his plan to build and then sell the project to Chinese government-owned corporations did not come off.

“(B)ecause he could not sell the project to an overseas company, he claims billions to Western Australia, and he does so notwithstanding that the resources are still in the ground,” Mr Quigley said.

The legislation proposed by Mr Quigley will include clauses that protect the state and its agents from any liability sought against any current or future damages claims.

One clause will also terminate any proceedings seeking to establish a liability against the state.

The disputes originate from the 2012 and 2014 decisions by then premier Colin Barnett to reject proposed developments for Balmoral South put forward by Mr Palmer and his private company, Mineralogy.

Mr Palmer subsequently launched legal action against the state, arguing the government did not have the ability to treat the proposals as invalid under the terms of an earlier “state agreement” over the project.

Mr Quigley argued the move would not give rise to any sovereign risk, noting that no other state agreement party had ever sought to challenge a minister’s decision or take the state to arbitration. “(The bill) contains a number of provisions and measures that are not usual, but Mineralogy and Mr Palmer are not normal and the state needs to (take) these measures to best protect its interests and the community’s interests,” he said.

The legal action does not encompass the existing Sino Iron mine elsewhere in the Pilbara, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year in royalties for Mr Palmer.

The controversial magnate already has been at loggerheads with WA over the state’s hard border closure, with Mr Palmer challenging the policy in the High Court.