#QldLNP#qldpol#Crime#LNPCorruption Hopeless’: Judge slams ex-LNP president’s over $5.5m government grant The former president of the #Queensland Liberal National Party launched such a “hopeless” legal defence to allegations he had misused $500,000 in Morrison government grant money that it was an “abuse of process”, a judge has ruled. David Hutchinson has been ordered to pay legal costs – on an indemnity basis – to former business partner and political ally Brad Carswell after a months-long dispute over their renewable energy company Green Day Energy. In the final weeks of the Morrison government, the company received a taxpayer-funded grant worth $5.5m to conduct research into the production of low-emissions energy from the combustion of a weed called prickly acacia. But Federal Court judge Roger Derrington, in a scathing judgment in December and an equally damning ruling in recent weeks, has slammed former director Mr Hutchinson for “misusing the company’s funds” for his own benefit and that of his relatives. In the most recent judgment, Justice Derrington said Mr Hutchinson’s attempts to defend his actions were so legally hopeless that they could “legitimately be described as an abuse”. “In the present circumstances, Mr Hutchinson’s defence of the claims against him, despite it being obvious from the evidence that it was hopeless, constituted sufficient misconduct to warrant the ordering of costs on an indemnity basis,” the judge said.
