Palmer is big in his own lunchtime and gets even bigger by dinner...
He had Christian Porter in his corner, then lost the Fed Govt backing. Now the PM is thinking he might have to back the Lab Govt as Palmer's case evaporates.
"The Commonwealth makes a decision on the constitutional position as they see it and intervenes in these cases as the High Court expects the Commonwealth to intervene based on how the Commonwealth assesses the law, the legal position," he (Mr Cormann) said."
"While this section appears straightforward on its face, interpretation of the phrase ‘absolutely free’ has given rise to the most confused jurisprudence in High Court history. For decades, the High Court was unable to agree on the underlying basis of s 92. Do the words ‘absolutely free’ mean that the section protects the right of individual Australians to trade across and move through state borders, as Barwick CJ held in Uebergang v Australian Wheat Board (1980)? Does s 92 only prevent the imposition of fiscal burdens on interstate trade, commerce, and intercourse, as Murphy J said in Buck v Bavone (1976)? Or does s 92 relate to wider economic concepts, such as the promotion of free trade and the prevention of state protectionism?" https://auspublaw.org/2020/08/border-closures-and-s-92-clive-palmers-quest-to-enter-wa/
I thought at first that Palmer was just going for a roll of the dice and see what number came up... maybe he's out to prove a point or even to exact revenge for the impudence of WA to tell him he couldn't come in... or perhaps he was simply after the publicity exposure... but by the quote from auspublaw, and if Palmer's lawyer is tricksy enough... well he might just manage to pick up a cool few million - I doubt that even the Fed Court would award damages for nothing more than a locked gate when he doesn't have an actual business to run in WA.
