Mining billionaire Clive Palmer has told the Federal Court that his battle with the government of West Australian Premier Mark McGowan made him vomit.
The businessman also compared Mr McGowan’s government to Nazi Germany as he testified in his defamation action against the WA premier in Sydney.
Mr Palmer said he feared for the safety of himself and his family after he viewed a website where people were encouraged to spit on him, including a video which showed people in nightclubs singing about wanting to kill him.
The mogul said he had wanted to vomit after discovering Mr McGowan’s government had passed legislation preventing him from claiming up to $30billion in compensation in relation to his proposed Balmoral South iron ore project in the state’s north-west.
Mr Palmer likened the law to fictional character James Bond’s ‘licence to kill’.
‘I was just scared because I didn’t expect governments ever to produce legislation like that in Australia so it really told me that you’d better take these people seriously, they could do anything,’ Mr Palmer told the court.
Clive Palmer told the Federal Court he wanted to vomit after discovering Mr McGowan’s government had passed legislation in relation to one of his iron ore projects in Western Australia
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan (pictured with his wife, Sarah) is counter-suing mining mogul Clive Palmer for defamation
Mr Palmer compared the WA government to Nazi Germany because of the legislation.
He said he fears what ‘the limits might be’ because the law protected the government from criminal prosecution.
Mr Palmer is suing Mr McGowan for defamation claiming that comments by the premier in 2020 subjected him to ‘hatred, ridicule and contempt’ and caused him to suffer ‘loss and damage to his reputation and injury to his feelings’.
In those comments the WA premier had called Mr Palmer an ‘enemy of the state’ because he had planned to promote hydroxychloroquine to Western Australians as a cure for Covid-19.
In a Facebook post, Mr McGowan had also accused the billionaire of using profits from his WA operations to remove Covid border restrictions in the state.
Mr Palmer claims Mr McGowan’s comments paint him as a traitor to Australia and intended to harm Western Australians.
He said Mr McGowan’s remarks suggested he was ‘equivalent to a drug dealer’ who disregarded the law. Mr Palmer said the comments left him unable to sleep at night and ‘very, very upset’.
Mr McGowan is counter-suing Mr Palmer for damage to his reputation, claiming the mining magnate had accused of him of lying and abusing the parliamentary system.
Mr Palmer is pictured in Kalgoorlie, WA. He told the Federal Court he was ‘amazed’ by comments by Mr McGowan that the state was ‘at war’ with him
Mr Palmer told the court has was ‘amazed’ by comments by Mr McGowan that WA was ‘at war’ with him.
‘I didn’t think that West Australia had the power to declare war on anyone let alone on a citizen,’ he said.
The meaning of the words used by both men, contained in submissions by their respective lawyers, are being ruled on by Justice Michael Lee.
Lawyers have argued over the meaning implied by each of the statements in question.
Yesterday Justice Lee expressed irritation over a delay in Mr McGowan responding to his lawyer about the ruling.
‘The respondent’s conduct in this litigation in seeming incapable of making any concession whatsoever about anything is something I’m finding increasingly irritating,’ Justice Lee said.
The lawyer for Mr McGowan, Clarissa Amato, said comments by Mr Palmer on August 13, 2020, constituted an allegation of corruption ‘of the utmost gravity’.
Mr Palmer failed in a High Court challenge to Western Australia’s Covid-19 border restrictions policy
Mr Palmer had referred to Mr McGowan being involved in ‘breaking the law’ and a ‘cover-up’, going on to compare him with US President Richard Nixon. He claimed the premier had made himself immune from criminal prosecution.
‘So you go to Western Australia, he can murder, shoot you, raid your house and he’s immune from criminal law,’ Mr Palmer told the ABC.
Mr Palmer had failed in a number of legal actions brought against the WA government during the pandemic, including in a High Court challenge to the state’s border restrictions policy.
The case continues in Sydney.
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