Palmer United tactics an abuse of power

ONCE again Clive Palmer has demonstrated his priority in Australian politics is to attack and destroy Campbell Newman and his LNP Queensland government.

A Senate inquiry into a state government is an absurdity and a debasement of its powers, yet it’s precisely what Palmer wants.

Government Senate Leader Eric Abetz is right to accuse the Palmer United Party of abusing parliament and pursuing Palmer’s “personal vendetta” against ­Newman.

Given Palmer’s own refusal to answer questions about his use of millions of dollars for election campaigning, the claims of PUP senator Glenn Lazarus about the Queensland government’s use of federal funds and taxpayers needing answers deserved the heckling they got from government senators yesterday.

Abetz’s claims that Palmer is “trashing democracy” with a star chamber is a little hollow when the Abbott government has called two royal commissions into the behaviour of the previous Labor government and linked entities. There is a convention new governments do not launch royal commissions into previous administrations nor trawl through cabinet documents.

Palmer could not have succeeded in his Queensland witch hunt without the support of the ALP in the Senate.

Indeed, this is the third time Palmer has tried to get up his Queensland inquiry.

Labor frontbencher Stephen Conroy said yesterday the opposition supported the inquiry because it was looking at a “thoroughly corrupt bunch of individuals” in Queensland and their conduct behind the scenes.

Conroy said the Newman government deserved scrutiny after twice previously leaving Palmer in the lurch. There is no doubt that there is ill feeling towards Tony Abbott over the federal royal commissions and that has undoubtedly helped PUP come back to bite the Prime Minister’s Queensland colleague.