Judge blasts McGowan, Palmer for wasting court time after defamation case ends in draw | hamishhastie
A Federal Court judge has delivered a stinging dressing down of billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer and West Australian Premier Mark McGowan for wasting the court’s time and resources in a lengthy defamation case that resulted in just $25,000 in damages being awarded.
Lee said neither party’s defences against the defamation allegations were able to be proven to a satisfactory level but said it was unlikely anyone’s reputation had been damaged because they were both political figures with baked-in reputations. “It is more likely that Mr McGowan’s reputation was enhanced, as the coverage Mr McGowan celebrated with Mr Stokes revealed, and as his language in the cross-claim matters made plain, they provided a common foe against which Mr McGowan could unite Western Australians,” he said.
“Although he was not running for office in 2020, he was the chairman of the United Australia Party, and was one of the most well-known figures operating in the sphere of Australian politics generally.”Lee also took aim at Palmer, McGowan and WA Attorney General John Quigley’s testimony while in the witness stand.
“To even his most rusted-on partisans, Mr McGowan would be unlikely to have been thought to resemble Ian Fleming’s fictional MI6 character, James Bond,” he said.
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