Clive Palmer clears legal hurdle in defamation suit against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

Clive Palmer has secured a big win in the Court of Appeal as he pursues Malcolm Turnbull in a defamation suit.

Clive Palmer. Picture: AAP

Clive Palmer has cleared a hurdle in his defamation lawsuit against Malcolm Turnbull, who excoriated the businessman’s “disgraceful” role in the collapse of his Queensland Nickel company.

Mr Palmer, who was the MP for Fairfax between 2013 and 2016, is suing the Prime Minister over criticism of the businessman’s involvement in the failure of his Townsville refinery company, which cost nearly 800 workers their jobs.

“Mr Palmer’s role is disgraceful — as you know, he’s been taking money out of that company for his own purposes and that has played a major part in the dire state the business is in,” Mr Turnbull reportedly said in China in April 2016.

The Queensland Supreme Court last June struck out Mr Palmer’s bid to sue Mr Turnbull over the comments, finding the businessman needed to plead the applicable Chinese law. This was because of a legal rule known as lex loci delicti, which favours the law of the place where the tort occurred.

However, the Court of Appeal today unanimously ruled Mr Palmer did not need to plead Chinese law in this case.

“The applicant has not pleaded anything as to foreign law and specifically has stated that he does not intend to rely on any aspect of Chinese law as differing from Australian law,” Justice Sue Brown said.

However Mr Palmer was unsuccessful in his bid to sue over the imputation that he acted “fraudulently” in the Queensland Nickel affair, finding Mr Turnbull’s attack did not specifically connote fraud.

“‘Fraudulent’ can carry a number of meanings and taking money out of Queensland Nickel is not of itself necessarily fraudulent and could be fraudulent on a number of different bases,” Justice Brown said.

At the 2016 news conference, Mr Turnbull reportedly said the fallout from Queensland Nickel’s collapse was “a tragedy” and praised Ewen Jones, then the local Liberal MP, for having “valiantly defended the workers there in Townsville.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP

“As you know, Michaelia Cash has been there, the Employment Minister and has announced that the Fair Entitlement Guarantee, the FEG payments, will be made. This will be the largest payout under that scheme in its history, over $70 million and you know that she’s also announced that the Commonwealth will apply for a special purpose liquidator to be appointed to the company for the purpose of ensuring that every asset that can be recovered from every other party for the benefit of the creditors of Queensland Nickel will be done,” he said, according to the judgment published today.

“Mr Palmer’s role in this is disgraceful. As you know, he’s been taking money out of that company for his own purposes and that has played a major part in the dire state the business is in.”