Queensland election 2015: Campbell Newman sues broadcaster

CLIVE Palmer has offered to bankroll Alan Jones’s defence of a defamation lawsuit brought by Campbell Newman.

PREMIER Campbell Newman has launched defamation action against Alan Jones, claiming the broadcaster’s attacks on Brisbane radio over the government’s ­approval of an expansion of a Queensland coalmine inferred he had lied and “prostituted himself”.

In a Supreme Court lawsuit filed by Mr Newman and Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney, the Queensland Premier has accused Jones of wrongly linking pre-Christmas approval of the Acland stage three mine, in southwest Queensland, because its parent company ­donated to the Liberal National Party.

Expansion of the mine, near Jones’s hometown of Acland, was approved by Queensland’s Co-­ordinator-General last month.

The government has since defended its backflip in ­opposing the expansion on the grounds the successful application was 60 per cent smaller in scale.

During an hour-long, daily election special broadcast on Brisbane radio 4BC this week, Jones repeatedly linked the approval, announced on December 19, and the donations — reported in The Australian last week — by the mine’s owners to the LNP.

Jones has claimed he met with Mr Newman before the 2012 election and won assurances that the expansion would not go ahead.

“Campbell Newman gave me an assurance, a categorical assurance, there would be no Acland stage three,” Mr Jones told Sky News yesterday, again accusing Mr Newman of being untruthful and calling his government the worst in history.

Mr Newman has refused to confirm or deny whether the purported meeting took place and has rejected as “totally untrue’’ suggestions that the expansion was approved because of the donations. “Mr Jones will have to justify in court his defamatory statements,” he said yesterday.

In the lawsuit, against Jones and 4BC, Mr Newman says that over three days this week the broadcaster launched the attacks against him and Mr Seeney, which he knew were false. The statement of claim alleges Jones defamed the Premier with imputations he “prostituted himself” and “dishonestly approved” the mine expansion because of the donation by parent company New Hope to the LNP.

“The defendants’ conduct was unjustifiable and warrants an award of aggravated damage,’’ the lawsuit says.

The legal action has drawn in federal MP and Queensland businessman Clive Palmer, who yesterday described Jones as a “brave and courageous man”.

“He has my financial support for any legal action brought against him by the Premier,’’ Mr Palmer said.

Mr Newman has sought to use his government’s relationship with Mr Palmer as evidence his government is not swayed by ­donations to the LNP.