WA Premier Mark McGowan tried to put an end to defamation proceedings with Queensland businessman Clive Palmer in December last year, but Mr Palmer rejected his offer, the Federal Court has heard.
Key points:
Mark McGowan had urged Clive Palmer to settle and avoid further costs
The daily cost of the Premier’s lawyer exceeds his payout, it has emerged
Justice Michael Lee will deliver his costs decision in court later today
Shortly before Christmas, Mr McGowan made an offer for both sides to drop their proceedings and walk away, with each to bear their own costs, thereby avoiding further expense.
But the offer was rejected by Mr Palmer and the case proceeded, with the court finding both sides defamed each other in a scathing judgment handed down last week.
Lawyers for both sides appeared in the Federal Court this morning to argue over costs, with Justice Michael Lee due to deliver his decision later today.
Mr McGowan was last week ordered to pay damages of $5,000 to Mr Palmer, while Mr Palmer was instructed to pay Mr McGowan $20,000.
Daily lawyer costs highlighted
During this morning’s arguments, Justice Lee remarked that even the daily cost of Mr McGowan’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, was higher than the damages awarded.
“It’s an interesting state of your career you reach when your daily fee exceeds the award of damages,” he said.
WA’s hard border sparked the bitter feud between Mr Palmer and Mr McGowan.(Facebook: Clive Palmer, Mark McGowan)
Mr Walker’s response was met with laughter in the courtroom.
“I’d hate for your honor to think this is the first time that’s happened,” he said.
Mr McGowan’s case has been funded by WA taxpayers, but the Premier has been at pains to point out that Mr Palmer initiated the defamation action.
Justice Lee said the rejected offer for both sides to walk away would be important in his decision.
Waste of court resources
The defamation action was centered on their war of words over WA’s closed border and a mining project of Mr Palmer’s.
Justice Lee was damning in his criticism of both men for wasting the court’s limited resources, telling the men: “The game has not been worth the candle.”
Both chose to be part of the “hurly burly” of political life and should have expected the barbs that came along with it, he said.
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Mark McGowan and Clive Palmer were slammed last week over the “wasteful” defamation trial.
The mining magnate was unhappy with the Premier’s decision to close WA’s border in April 2020, which he felt was disruptive to his business interests, and sought to have the closure overturned in court.
Over the course of a series of press conferences in 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, Mr McGowan called Mr Palmer an “enemy of the state” for his actions.
The mining magnate told the court this caused him to be brought into “hatred, ridiculous and contempt”, but Justice Lee found the damage to his reputation to be non-existent.
A serial litigant, Mr Palmer was observed in the witness box by the judge to have “carried himself with the unmistakable aura of a man assured as to the correctness of his own opinions”.
‘Outlaw swinging his gun’
The other part of the defamation claim related to a state agreement held by Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy for the Balmoral South iron ore project.
The development of the project was rejected by the then-Liberal government in 2012 under Colin Barnett, and Mr Palmer had sought $30 million in damages for what he maintained was a breach of contract.
However, under Mr McGowan extraordinary legislation was passed preventing him from seeking compensation, prompting Mr Palmer to call the Premier “an outlaw swinging his gun around to protect him and his Attorney General from the criminal law”.
Mr McGowan said these and other comments suggested he had behaved corruptly, and prompted him to counter-sue Mr Palmer.
One week after kicking disgraced UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his way out the door, John Oliver returned to the Last Week Tonight desk on Sunday to weigh in on the defamation trial of unhinged conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found liable for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was a “hoax” filled “with actors.”
The jury awarded Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, $45.2 million in punitive damages and $4.1 million in compensatory damages. Jones, 48, is facing additional defamation suits in Connecticut and Texas.
After describing Jones as “a man who boldly answers the question: What if Grimace were a Proud Boy?” Oliver exclaimed, “Guess what, Alex? You fucked with info and this time info fucking won.” He added: “And the way he’s handled this trial is almost a master class in what not to do in court.”
For starters, as Oliver pointed out, the judge became so “exasperated” with Jones’ lying in court that she at one point stopped the proceedings to address it, telling him, “It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify, but here I am: You must tell the truth while you testify… this is not your show.”
That didn’t stop Jones, who continued to appear during the trial on his truth-averse Infowars show, where he, according to Oliver, “baselessly linked [the judge] to pedophilia” and suggested that his political enemies stacked the jury with “blue-collar” people who were not capable of deciding the damages he should pay. This is typical of Jones, who once claimed that the government had been poisoning the water and made frogs turn gay, that Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor, that the car attack in Charlottesville was a false flag operation, that Michelle Obama is transgender, and that 9/11 was “a government-orchestrated controlled bombing.”
“There was one twist that he may not have seen coming,” Oliver said of Jones’ trial.
A lawyer representing the parents of the slain Sandy Hook child presented a text message in court that proved Jones had lied on the stand when he claimed that there were no texts on his phone of him discussing Sandy Hook. When Jones expressed surprise at where the lawyer might have gotten it, he explained to Jones: “Did you know [that] 12 days ago your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone, with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years? And when informed, [they] did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way? And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession, and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook.”
“This is your Perry Mason moment,” a stunned Jones replied.
“Oh shit!” exclaimed Oliver. “First, credit to that lawyer for having the superhuman patience to sit on those text messages for 12 whole days… but the content of Jones’ phone could become a problem for him. Not only has the Jan. 6 committee already requested those phone records, but they also show that Jones, who’s tried to plead poverty in this case, was earning revenue of as much as $800,000 per day in recent years from sales.”
Oliver concluded: “Look, clearly, none of this is going to stop him. There are two more trials coming up, and he’s probably going to find ways to turn those into a clown show as well and fundraise off them too. But at the very least, this phone thing could make his life much more difficult—and for a while. And that is something that we should all be allowed to enjoy, because to wake up one morning and find out that Alex Jones’ lawyers mistakenly shared his cellphone records of him is a true blessing. We don’t deserve this, but one thing’s for sure: He definitely does.”
The legal team for far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accidentally sent two years of his phone records to the attorneys for parents of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim, cross-examination revealed Wednesday during his defamation trial.
“Your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years,” attorney Mark Bankston Told Jones during a hearing to decide damages in the civil case.
“And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have to text messages about Sandy Hook,” he added.
Jones has long touted a theory that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax.
He was found guilty by default in four defamation cases last year after failing to comply with court orders.
Bankston argued Wednesday that Jones lied under oath about having searched his own phone for the texts and withheld the evidence in lawsuits brought by Sandy Hook families.
Jones replied that he’d given his phone over to his team.
“This is your Perry Mason moment,” he told Bankston, making reference to the fictional TV lawyer who often presented dramatic evidence at trial that changed the proceedings.
Bankston is part of the legal team representing Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis.
The Washington Post reported that Bankston caught Jones in a similar contradiction about related emails, showing the court copies of emails sent by Jones despite his insistence that he does not use email.
Bankston also revealed evidence indicating that Jones had not been truthful about his financial situation, perhaps in an effort to skirt the $150 million in defamation damages that the Sandy Hook parents are seeking, The New York Times reported.
Jones’s company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy at the start of the trial — and his far-right website Infowars did the same back in April.
Jones testified Wednesday that he now acknowledges that the Sandy Hook massacre was real.
He said that meeting the victims’ parents, whom he previously called “crisis actors,” changed his mind. “It’s 100 percent real,” Jones said, according to The Associated Press.
Despite this concession, Jones continues to defend his actions and argues that the trial violates his free speech rights.
He arrived at the courthouse last week with “Save the 1st” written on a strip of duct tape over his mouth.
The legal team for far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accidentally sent two years of his phone records to the attorneys for parents of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim, cross-examination revealed Wednesday during his defamation trial.
“Your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years,” attorney Mark Bankston Told Jones during a hearing to decide damages in the civil case.
“And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have to text messages about Sandy Hook,” he added.
Jones has long touted a theory that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax.
He was found guilty by default in four defamation cases last year after failing to comply with court orders.
Bankston argued Wednesday that Jones lied under oath about having searched his own phone for the texts and withheld the evidence in lawsuits brought by Sandy Hook families.
Jones replied that he’d given his phone over to his team.
“This is your Perry Mason moment,” he told Bankston, making reference to the fictional TV lawyer who often presented dramatic evidence at trial that changed the proceedings.
Bankston is part of the legal team representing Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis.
The Washington Post reported that Bankston caught Jones in a similar contradiction about related emails, showing the court copies of emails sent by Jones despite his insistence that he does not use email.
Bankston also revealed evidence indicating that Jones had not been truthful about his financial situation, perhaps in an effort to skirt the $150 million in defamation damages that the Sandy Hook parents are seeking, The New York Times reported.
Jones’s company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy at the start of the trial — and his far-right website Infowars did the same back in April.
Jones testified Wednesday that he now acknowledges that the Sandy Hook massacre was real.
He said that meeting the victims’ parents, whom he previously called “crisis actors,” changed his mind. “It’s 100 percent real,” Jones said, according to The Associated Press.
Despite this concession, Jones continues to defend his actions and argues that the trial violates his free speech rights.
He arrived at the courthouse last week with “Save the 1st” written on a strip of duct tape over his mouth.
For a man so up in arms about being thrust in front of a “kangaroo court,” Alex Jones appears to be trying his hardest to make a mockery of the ongoing defamation suit brought against him by Sandy Hook parents.
The final afternoon of testimony in Jones’ two-week trial got off to a rocky start on Tuesday, with the judge presiding over the Austin case reprimanding the notorious conspiracy theorist as he appeared to chew something in court.
“Spit your gum out, Mr. Jones,” said Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, eyeing Jones grimly from behind the bench.
“It’s not gum,” the far-right broadcaster retort immediately. Jones claimed that he’d had a tooth pulled late last month, and that he was massaging the hole in his mouth with his tongue.
“Would you like me to show ya?” he asked, leaning in.
“…I don’t want to see the inside of your mouth,” Gamble said, admonishing him to “sit down.”
The terse exchange came after a morning of emotional testimony from plaintiff Neil Heslin, the father of 6-year-old shooting victim Jesse Lewis. Heslin and Lewis’ mother, Scarlett Lewis, are seeking at least $150 million from Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, in compensatory damages. (Free Speech Systems filed for federal bankruptcy protection last week, according to the Austin American-Statesmanthough this is not expected to impact the trial.)
The parents contend in their 2018 lawsuit that Jones baselessly claimed the massacre was a hoax orchestrated by the government, dragging them—and other Sandy Hook families—through years of harassment and pain.
“I can’t even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones,” Heslin said.
Jones was not present in court during Heslin’s testimony, the Associated Press reported. Heslin criticized his absence from him, calling it “cowardly.”
“Today is very important to me and it’s been a long time coming… to face Alex Jones for what he said and did to me. To restore the honor and legacy of my son,” he said.
Jones went so far as to take potshots at the families from afar, calling them “pawns” in an episode of his Infowars show that aired Tuesday, according to Media Matters for America.
Later in the episode, an aggrieved Jones blasted Gamble and the lawyers representing Lewis’ parents, calling them “caricatures of what you would imagine in some alternate universe of dwarf goblins.”
“It’s demonic,” he added. “They all act demonically possessed. The judge, the lawyers. It’s surreal to be around them. And it makes you feel sorry for them because these people are committed to occult ideology of the new world order.”
Footage from the episode was introduced by the prosecution in court later that same day, while Scarlett Lewis was on the stand. She was asked how the clip made her feel, and she leveled her gaze at Jones, who had arrived at the Texas courthouse at that point.
“It’s horrible. Horrific. Horrific,” she said, according to the Independent.
Jones, who has attempted to spin the complaint against him as an attack on his First Amendment rights, had rolled up to the courthouse after the morning session. A piece of duct tape covering his mouth had the phrase “Save the 1st” plastered across it.
To reporters outside, Jones raged against Judge Gamble, accusing her of rigging the trial. “All I did was speculate and ask questions—I have a right to do that,” he smoked.
Jones is expected to testify as the defense’s only witness later on Tuesday.
Mining tycoon Clive Palmer and WA Premier Mark McGowan defamed each other, the Federal Court has found, in a war of words over WA’s hard border and a damage claim for a failed mining project worth up to $30 billion.
Key points:
Both Clive Palmer and Mark McGowan were awarded damages
The case related to comments made after the closing of WA’s borders
Costs will be assessed at a later court hearing
Mr Palmer was awarded $5,000 while Mr McGowan won a counter-claim of $20,000, in a judgment handed down by Justice Michael Lee today.
Mr Palmer launched legal action against Mr McGowan after a series of comments made at press conferences in 2020, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Queensland mining magnate told the Federal Court he was brought into “hatred, ridiculous and contempt” after Mr McGowan called him an “enemy of the state” over his challenge that sought to overturn WA’s hard border policy.
Mr McGowan counter-sued Mr Palmer over comments centered on legislation that prevented the Queensland businessman from claiming up to $30 billion in damages over a mining development by his firm Mineralogy.
Justice Lee said when assessing damages, he considered the fact much of the public would already have “well-entrenched perceptions” as to the character and reputations of political figures.
However, when deciding damages for Mr McGowan, Justice Lee said although the damage to his reputation was “non-existent”, “Mr McGowan’s evidence as to an aspect of the subjective hurt he suffered was compelling”.
In delivering his judgement, Justice Lee noted the significant costs incurred in prosecuting this case.
“The game has not been worth the candle,” he said.
“These proceedings have not only involved considerable expenditure by Mr Palmer and the taxpayers of Western Australia, but have also consumed considerable resources of the Commonwealth,” he said.
“Importantly (they have) diverted court time from resolving controversies of real importance to persons who have a pressing need to litigate.”
At a press conference, Mr McGowan said the last thing he wanted to be doing was fighting a defamation action, adding the start of the pandemic was a “highly anxious time”.
But he defended the steps he took in putting in place the hard border and mineralology legislation.
“I’ll go to my grave proud of what we did,” he said.
“I actually think it was one of the proudest moments, that and the hard border, in recent West Australian history.”
The court will reconvene at a later date to assess costs, which are expected to far outstrip the damages awarded.
McGowan, Palmer chose ‘hurly burly’ of political life
In his ruling, Justice Lee referred to conservative British MP Enoch Powell’s remark “for a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea”.
“As these proceedings demonstrate, a politician litigating over the barbs of a political adversary might be considered a similarly futile exercise,” Justice Lee said.
The judge said Mr McGowan and Mr Palmer chose to be part of the “hurly burly” of political life, despite Mr Palmer resisting characterization as a political figure.
He described Mr Palmer as an “indefatigable litigant”.
The public spat between mining magnate Clive Palmer (pictured) and Mark McGowan erupted at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.(ABC News: Steve Keen)
“This was evidently not his first experience in a witness box … he carried himself with the unmistakable aura of a man assured as to the correctness of his own opinions,” Justice Lee noted.
The judge described Mr Palmer as a generally “combative and evasive witness” who on more than one occasion was unwilling to make obvious concessions.
He also rubbished Mr Palmer’s claim he feared for his, his family’s and his employee’s safety and lives, after the Mineralogy legislation was passed.
“To even his most-rusted on partisans, Mr McGowan would be unlikely to have thought to resemble Ian Fleming’s fictional MI6 character James Bond,” Justice Lee said.
Justice Lee described Mr Palmer’s evidence that Mr McGowan had been given a “license to kill” as “fanciful”.
Feud erupts over WA hard border
The stoush began whenWA shut its border to the rest of the country in 2020, which Clive Palmer challenged in the High Court, drawing the ire of Mr McGowan.
The court heard Mr McGowan made comments about an alleged plan by Mr Palmer to promote the drug hydroxychloroquine, which in the early days of the pandemic was briefly touted as a potential treatment.
Mr Palmer brought the defamation action against Mr McGowan over his comments about the mining magnate’s attempt to enter the state in 2020.(Facebook: Clive Palmer, Mark McGowan)
After a series of trials, it became clear the drug was not effective.
Mr McGowan told a press conference in August 2020 that Mr Palmer was coming to “promote” hydroxychloroquine, when all the evidence showed it was not a cure and was in fact dangerous.
In the defamation proceedings, Mr Palmer argued this implied he sought to harm the people of Western Australia by providing them with a drug he knew was dangerous and dishonestly promoted it as a cure for COVID-19.
Justice Lee did not accept this, saying “it is too much of a stretch to say that vehement disagreement with Mr Palmer’s view conveys that Mr Palmer subjectively intended to cause harm or behaved dishonestly”.
Multi-billion dollar mining damages claim at heart of case
The defamation proceedings also examined a state agreement held by Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy for the Balmoral South iron ore project.
Mr Palmer sought to develop that site in 2012 but was knocked back by the then-Barnett government, prompting him to launch legal action against the WA Government seeking damages for what he said was a breach of the state agreement.
The WA Government then passed extraordinary legislation that prevented Mr Palmer from succeeding in that claim, which was estimated at $30 billion, amounting to the state government’s 2020 annual budget.
Mr Palmer lashed out at Mr McGowan as the architect of that legislation.
Mark McGowan said Mr Palmer’s comments had aroused “anger and madness” in the community. (ABC News: Cecilia Connell)
The court heard in an August 2020 interview with ABC radio, Mr Palmer described Mr McGowan as “an outlaw swinging his gun around to protect him and his Attorney General from the criminal law”.
“What crime did you commit Mark, that you want to be immune from?”
Mr McGowan countered Mr Palmer on those and other comments, which he said suggested he had acted corruptly.
Palmer defamed McGowan for claiming he ‘lied’
Mr McGowan also argued Mr Palmer had defamed him when he claimed he had lied about the health advice he relied on when deciding to close the state’s border.
Justice Lee upheld that claim.
However, the judge said while Mr McGowan was generally an impressive witness, he “skirted” around the substantive question as to whether Dr Robertson, the Chief Health Officer, had given advice to this effect.
Justice Lee noted however that the impact on Mr McGowan’s reputation was “inconsequential”, citing his personal approval polling of 89 per cent and Labor’s sweeping victory in the 2021 state election, in which he increased the margin in his seat of Rockingham to 37.7 per cent .
WA government’s behavior ‘highly disturbing’: Palmer
Mr Palmer responded to Tuesday’s finding by saying it highlighted the extent to which the WA Premier and Attorney-General had conspired in secrecy to change legislation.
This was designed to deprive Mineralogy of its property, according to Mr Palmer.
“Today’s judgment in Sydney from Justice Michael Lee revealed that Mark McGowan and John Quigley plotted between themselves with late-night texts to have legislation changed,” he said.
“It is highly disturbing that this is how the WA government acts.”
Premier’s relationship with media mogul under microscope
The very public spat played out in the Federal Court has also revealed aspects of Mr McGowan’s relationship with the state’s only daily newspaper owner, Kerry Stokes.
Texts between Mr McGowan and Mr Stokes were read in court regarding the introduction of legislation that prevented Mr Palmer from claiming damages in relation to the failed Balmoral South mining project.
A text from Mr McGowan flagged the legislation in question, which was a closely-guarded secret, just minutes before it was introduced to Parliament, saying he would call Mr Stokes to discuss.
Subsequent front pages of The West Australian newspaper featured images of Mr Palmer digitally manipulated to appear as a cane toad and a cockroach, prompting Mr McGowan to thank him for the “marvelous front pages”.
At a press conference, Mr McGowan was asked a series of questions about the nature of his relationship with Mr Stokes.
Mr McGowan defended his decision to let Mr Stokes know about the legislation before it was read into parliament.(ABC News: James Carmody)
He denied Mr Stokes was one of the few people informed of the legislation before it was introduced, saying he had told the expenditure cabinet review committee on the previous Friday.
He said he briefed a number of people before the legislation went before the Upper House, including senior members of the federal government, state opposition, former Premier Colin Barnett, industry associations and groups and a “range of journalists”.
The Premier said he rarely contacted Mr Stokes for advice or discussion around state issues, and could not remember if he called him that day.
Justice Lee also noted WA Attorney General John Quigley’s evidence was “confusing” but he did not believe he was trying to be dishonest.
Mr Quigley later corrected evidence he gave at the trial, while insisting his evidence could be relied upon.
Opposition slams McGowan over trial
Opposition Leader Mia Davies said the trial was a “waste of money and the government’s time.”
Mia Davies says Mr McGowan should have been attending to issues affecting WA rather than spending time in court. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
“This case wasted time that the Premier could have spent dealing with the multitude of crises on the home front in health, housing and easing the cost of living for everyday West Australians,” Ms Davies said.
She called for Mr Quigley to be given the boot, saying the Premier “needs to wake up and take responsibility for his embattled Cabinet”.
WA Liberals leader David Honey said the defamation trial was an insult to the WA taxpayer, who were “undeservedly footing the bill for Premier McGowan’s bruised ego.”
“WA’s Premier needs to be leading the state, not embarking on unnecessary legal action,” he said.
“The vanity exercise by the Premier has wasted considerable public money but also wasted, as Justice Lee highlighted, valuable court time for far more pressing legal matters affecting the lives of everyday Australians.”
Dr Honey also called for the Attorney General’s role to be immediately reviewed following his “memory failure” in court.
