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Mark McGowan promises to reveal Clive Palmer defamation legal bill after verdict

Peter LawThe West Australian
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Mark McGowan and Clive Palmer.
Camera IconMark McGowan and Clive Palmer. Credit: The West Australian

Mark McGowan has pledged to reveal the cost to WA taxpayers of his two-year defamation battle with Clive Palmer after a Federal Court judge delivers his verdict on Tuesday.

Justice Michael Lee will hand down his long-awaited judgment at 11.30am, at which point the Premier said he would disclose the cost of his taxpayer-funded legal defence and counterclaim.

Ahead of the verdict, Mr McGowan was asked on ABC radio what the legal case had cost, replying: “I don’t have the exact figures, I’ll reveal that but I’ll await the judgment later on today.

“The context was he tried to bring down the border at the height of COVID and he tried to take the State ... for $30 billion or $30,000 million, which is the entire State Budget, so I had to defend that and then I got sued.”

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The Premier said he was unable to clarify prior to the judgment whether his legal bill had cost the State Government millions of dollars.

“I can’t, on legal advice, deal with those issues, but I will reveal whatever the figures are later on,” he said.

Justice Michael Lee will hand down his judgment in Melbourne, three months after he warned lawyers for the Premier that there was a prospect none of their defences against defamation claims made by Mr Palmer would succeed.

It opened up the possibility of a damages award to the billionaire — however, this could be a nominal figure because the judge said he had struggled to find any reputational harm suffered by either man out of their war of words.

In April, Justice Lee questioned whether the public’s view of both men was so “baked in” that anything they said about one another would not be enough to do serious damage.

“This is a case between two political combatants — they are people who have a reputation that is baked in,” he said.

“There are people who love them, people who hate them — and people who want both sides to lose.”

Mr Palmer’s claim was based on him being labelled an “enemy of the state” by Mr McGowan amid a flurry of insults fired during press conferences in mid-2020.

The mining magnate, meanwhile, accused the Premier of lying to the public about health advice used to keep the borders shut.

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