Palmer in the High Court fighting for his $28 billion … Taking the State of Western Australia to the cleaners … Nuremberg trials … Martin Luther King … Rule of law … Clive wants his iron ore … Tears and emotion unparalleled in the court’s history … Janek Drevikovsky reports on proceedings before an awestruck bench   

Australia’s top judge, listening on from the centre of a full High Court bench, gave a small cough, and then another. A few metres behind her, Justice Keane’s associate took a sustained gulp from his water bottle. 

From the bar table came only the sounds of choked tears, ragged breath and a snotty nose. Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer was treating the Court to the most blubbery performance it’s ever seen. 

The mining magnate gathered his strength, clearing his nostrils with two snorts. In trembling tones, he pressed on, evoking the heady days of Nuremberg 1946:

“I am reminded today of Robert Jackson, former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America and the points he made so long ago as prosecutor of criminals who had sought to hide behind extreme values, extreme laws in another place and time.

“He said that all judges, lawyers and citizens must defend the rule of law when it is under threat. Hence, my appearance in this Court today.”

At the heart of the case, Mr Palmer told the Court, was a “repugnant” and “violent” statute, an “abomination masquerading as a law”, rushed through the WA parliament in August 2020 as a personal attack on Palmer and co.

The statute prevented Palmer and his mining outfit Mineralogy, from suing WA for piles of cash, after their proposed Pilbara ore project was put on ice. Mr Palmer said he and his companies were owed $28 billion.

If Mr Palmer won his damages bill, the entire state would be bankrupted, WA premier Mark McGowan claimed last year. 

But the Act was invalid, Mr Palmer told the High Court in his allotted hour on Wednesday last week, because it singled him out for attack. 

He reeled off quotes from WA Hansard the day the Act was passed: 

“In the Hansard material which I refer to there is ample evidence that I am a ‘fat Queenslander’, a ‘cane toad’, ‘eastern stater’ – they have declared war on me.” 

He argued the Act discriminated against him because he was a resident of Queensland, meaning it breached of s.117 of the Constitution. This was only the opening number of Palmer’s constitutional law variety show, a sarabande from the Australia Act, to s.75 and beyond. 

Palmer QC then came to the rule of law. The Act “violated” the “core principles and values” of the rule of law, by placing WA’s government above the law.

Chief Justice Kiefel wasn’t sure Mr Palmer had got his head around what the rule of law meant. 

And continue he did, with a “few short, concluding observations, some not of a judicial nature”, including an appeal to Luther King, civil rights apostle and well-known champion of litigious billionaires: 

“As a great man said a long time ago, ‘An injustice to one man anywhere is an injustice to all men everywhere’.” 

Now streaming with tears, Mr Palmer hit all the high notes: 

“If the Amending Act is valid, they will come for all of us. There will be no one left to speak out for Australia and its people. 

“The Amending Act is repugnant to justice and the rule of law. I will respectfully submit it should be declared by this honourable Court as invalid in its entirety.”

Courtroom 1 almost broke into applause. But the heartless CJ was unmoved: 

“Yes, thank you, Mr Palmer. Solicitor‑General for Western Australia. Yes, Mr Solicitor.”

See:

Iron Ore Processing (Mineralogy Pty Ltd) Agreement Amendment Act, 2020

Mineralogy Pty Ltd & Anor v State if Western Australia; Palmer v State of Western Australia – audio visual recording of the hearing