The Chaser Report - Clive Palmer vs Australia

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

Dom unpacks Clive Palmer's lawsuit against Australia that could cost everyone in the country $11K. But first, Charles has an impressive medical announcement that explains why his face looks the way it does. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Now, Charles, we need to begin this story, which we'll get on to Clive Palmer suing Australia for, guess how much? It's probably some huge amount, like a billion dollars or something? Higher. It's to do with the lack of opportunity to develop a mine, which I think he thinks. Oh, that's five billion. We'll make a lot of money. Try it.

$300 billion. I think you've got to say that phrase, sounding like Dr. Evil. $300 billion. Yes, absolutely right. So it's taken it to an international court, apparently. So I don't understand all the legal ins and outs of this, but it's going to the Hague.

Really? Yes, it is. Wow. The West Australian, which reported this on Saturday, says it could cost every Australian $11,500. Every single one of us. Well, I'm sure everyone will be very pleased to chip in if it's going to a good cause.

Sure. And what better cause then? What, to just... I mean, that would make Clive Palmer the richest man in the world, wouldn't it? Probably, yeah. No one's got 300 billion. He could be the first trillionaire. Not yet.

Just before we get on to that, though, Charles. We've got to talk about the elephant in the room. You look as though... The elephant man in the room. Yeah, exactly. You look as if you've been in a fight with like a scour or something. Your skin is very rashy. There's a great topic for an audio medium.

We'll get into it after this. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.C.

Yeah, so basically blotches upon blotches upon blotches. It's as though the makeup for the TV series that you've been filming has had a massive reaction. But there also, there's a few things that look like. Like scabs that have crusted over and I don't know what's going on. It actually looks a little bit like I've been in Chernobyl. Like I've been a frontline fighter in Chernobyl. If it was a raspberry frion, if people imagine a raspberry frieon,

it'd be very tasty. But as blotches on your countenance, you're usually fairly impeccable countenance. Oh, exactly. Yeah, I mean. No, so this is actually good news, Dom. Right. This whole hideous appearance.

It doesn't look like good news. It looks like a major, anaphylactic emergency. this one looks like, essentially. So, no, the good news is that I'm definitely going to be able to get into good weekend, right? Oh, right, right, you know, like having some story, no, some story of adversity, you know, about how a plucky young comedian won against the odds against cancer. A short way away from his 50th birthday. Because I'm doing chemo in a tube. Really?

This is what this is. Chemo in a tube. So, I don't know about you. You probably, you've got terrible. pasty skin as well. I've got terrible Scottish ancestry. It's the time as you, I think. So do you go to the skin doctor every six months and get a whole of sunspots?

They're about. Yeah, yeah, he goes over with a camera and just checks that things haven't changed. If you aren't doing that and you're in any way Scottish or pasty like us, you have to do that, by the way. So I've done that for years and, like, decades. But your skin's even fairer than mine, I would think, as a ginger. And it got to the point where my GP got so frustrated with me going back each year to get a referral that she gave me like this thing like an eternal referral. Is that a thing?

Yeah, which is a thing. Like if you have really pasty skin. Talk about white privilege. Yeah. That's very funny. Medical system has a hitherto unknown quirk that means you can. So it's because my GP does mine. My GP has training in it and does the photos.

I'm hoping that's good enough. Yeah, good enough. Yeah, no, I go to suspicious. But so she got a bit frustrated with me because there's just so much to burn off each time and I hate her for it because it really stings. It does. And it looks hideous. So they use liquid nitrogen if it's the same as my one. They freeze it off

and then if it's a really bad one they actually dig it out and send it off to the lab. Yeah, yeah. Well, I got that one biopsy. And guess what? I had cancer. Whoa. I had cancer there. Gosh, Barry the lead. And then she said Charles has cancer. Yes, I get to do all the, I can do a fundraiser. Fuck Bill Gibson. It's

Charles Firth. Cancer. Wow. Cancer survivor. Yeah. No, no. That one they biopsided and they went, oh, your body has actually... I'm going to have to take a photo for the episode. I'm really sorry. And killed the cancer, isn't me? Okay.

So you should see for this, in the sort of image for this episode, the full hedonistness of Charles is. But this is an inspiring story of survival against the odds. Yeah, so the point is that you can now, there's this cream. Apparently it's been around for years, but I didn't know about it, where it's chemo in a tube and you put it on and it's incredibly painful. And if you put it on, you're supposed to put it on for three weeks, but then your skin actually sort of falls off, right? Oh, so that's sort of acidic or something.

But I've done, I've done it, but it's very targeted. Only targets where the precancerous sunspots are. So you just put it on the spot. Where all the reds are. No, no, you put it everywhere and it just, it only attacks the cancer spots. That's brilliant. And so you can see all the red stuff on my face is pre-cancerous sunspots. So most of your face is pre-cancerous sunspots.

spots. I know. Bearing of mine, he's still got your beard. You should probably shave off for the purposes of this. And then it'll take five years, if you reckon, like, then last for five years. I don't have to go back and get it burned off for five years, yeah. So can you do that all over the rest of your body? Because, I mean, I had one of my back that got cut off.

But no, I've been careful enough that it hasn't been a huge problem slash avoided the outdoors. But I just think I can now approach, you know, good weekend journalist and say, look, I'm a cancer survivor. So can I... Australian story. Yeah, that's... Yeah, it's the inspiring story. I should have to say. How a dickhead overcame the odds.

You would be quite a good Australian story, something, actually. Yeah, I reckon. Because of the number of times life has gently tapped you on the shoulder and said, Charles, I think your skills are the best developed elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. And then this year's been your year. Yes.

So on top of optics, your TV series, you're doing very well on your stage show. Yeah. You're now a cancer. And that's like a tri-fair. Triumph. comes in three. Yes. Things come in three.

Wow. Okay. So Charles Firth Cancer Survivor. That's, I mean, somewhere under there, if we delve deep enough, is a fairly moving story, actually. Yeah. I propose not to delve in any way. But instead, just laugh at the cratery results. But no, that's good.

Five years. Yeah, five years in the clear. That's wonderful. So, all right. Well, I better go and get mine done. I got mine done a few months ago and there wasn't anything majorly of concern. I want the magic cream. My strong advice is don't take the cream because it's so painful.

Like I woke up in the middle of last night just in pain. And I haven't, but it's been five days since I last applied the cream. But on the bright side, if Ryan Reynolds is unavailable for Deadpool on the next episode, I think you could actually substitute very well for Wade Wilson. That would be the total, like, getting Deadpool. That would be, that's great. Yeah. Like if Ryan Reynolds does actually, like, carc it in a Deadpool situation, you could actually step in, I think.

Very good. All right, well, without wanting to minimize your pain and trauma, compared to Australia losing $300 billion in court, it's nothing. So what, so, so. Let's just give the listeners a minute or two to recover after the bombshell of you having cancer and then having gotten rid of it. What a roller coaster ride. What a roller coasterized.

All right, just a second. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being. on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.C.A. The Chaser report. News you know you can't trust. Any money from that is necessary, will be directed to the Charles Firth. Foundation. Foundation. I'm going to set up a non-profit.

He should. You already did. It's called the Chaser. Anyway, all right. So let me just read you some of this, hard to make sense of. This is Tim Clark's article from the West Australian. Begins with this quote, Clive Palmer's astronomical bid to sue Australia for $300 billion hits court on Monday, i.e. today, with allegations of government espionage, standover tactics and the leak of top secret information. And it's going to the hay. This is bizarre. So apparently what happened is the McGowan government in WA passed a law to kill off his last lawsuit. So So, Clive Palmer tried to sue Western Australia, the state. And the McGowan government passed a law saying that he couldn't do that.

And as part of this case, Palmer is apparently alleging that the federal government might be hacking into his lawyer's computers, and he also wants to call his former lawyer as a witness. Guess who the lawyer is that Clive Palmer wants to call as a witness, bearing in mind this is from Western Australia. Is it Christian Porter? It is Christian Porter. Yes.

Wow. Amazing. So Christian Porter. So wait a minute. Was he say, so Christian Border was representing Clive Palmer. Apparently. But he's now the former lawyer. Does that mean they had a bit of a falling out?

I mean, Christian Porter would never fall out with anyone. No, God, yeah. No, I don't know. She's suggesting that might be your family. Yes. So, anyway, look, let me talk you through what this is all about. We'll get to Christian Porter's role in all this. So bizarrely enough, and this must be in the ICC or something.

Or the International Court of Justice, the civil version of that. I think that is, if I remember my international law, which I don't. Basically, there is an Asian-Austral. New Zealand free trade agreement. I didn't even know that, but apparently there is. And there's an investor state dispute settlement clause in that treaty, which we've signed presumably, which allows foreign investors, including Australian investors overseas, I'm quoting again here, the right to access a tribunal, international tribunal, to resolve investment

disputes. So he's claiming that somehow this is an ASEAN dispute, even though he lives in Australia and is suing the Australian government. He's involving ASEAN. Well, presumably he has offshoreed a lot of his money. He has. So in 2019, he registered Zepf investments in Singapore, which owns mineralogy, his mining company. I like the fact that we've signed an agreement that allows only foreigners to sue our government.

But you've got more rights as a foreigner than you do as an Australian against your own government. When the mining lobby bangs on about how much they do for Australia and how they should be taxed. Bearing in mind that Clive Palmer's mine, it seems he, is actually technically Singaporean own in a tax haven. What a fucking cunning. And I think Gina Reinhardt, didn't she set up things in Singapore too? She certainly has a house there, I think. So, anyway, based on Zep Investments, which owns mineralogy, which he certainly hasn't been willing to make much publicity

about when being, you know, saying Clive Palmer, living national treasurer of Australia. Yes. He seeks US $198 million, $192,000, $202,000, $414,000, $225. You know, so they worked that out. In damages, interest, and costs, due to the alleged loss of a contractual entitlement and sovereign risk to other projects, including $10 billion in moral damages.

Clive Palmer's claiming morality, Charles in this. Amazing. So, wait a minute. So you can sue for moral damages. What does that even mean? I don't think it means anything. So does that mean, say, I've never heard of moral damages. Moral damages, like, that's great.

Like, so if somebody does something wrong to you, can you go and, but it's not illegal, it's just wrong. Yeah. You know, like it cuts you off in the traffic. It sounds like you should ask Christian Porter what to do. He's Mr. Moral Damages, facts. So what it says here, so... I thought it was immoral damages.

Well, that was never heard in court if I remember Charles, so you wouldn't want to suggest anything like that. I don't think he wants to take that one back into court, does he? No. So apparently, and this is slightly concerning, perhaps as well, I don't know. The W.A. passed a thing called the 2020 Amendment Act, developed and drawn up in secret between Mark McGowan, attorney general John Quigley and the state's top lawyers.

And that act basically stopped Clive Palmer taking $30 billion in damages from Western Australia after it refused to approve mineralogy's proposal to develop the Balmoral South Iron or mine in the Pilbara. So he wanted to mine the Pilbara, which I imagine has significance to First Nations and so on. And he tried to sue them for $30 billion and they passed a law saying he couldn't. Right. But it never got judged that he was up, like he was going to win. No, and he appealed it all the way to the High Court and failed.

So, but I don't know, I like the idea that if I needed to sue the government for something, they wouldn't be able to pass a law saying that I couldn't in a way, don't you think? Then again, it's Clive Palmer so far. It's Clive Palmer, I don't think there's any principle here. There's no sort of like, in fact, probably when the Magna Carta was being drafted, they probably went. Yeah, sort of the vassal, Parmarius or something, it was there just going, fuck them all.

Moral rights. So this will go before a panel of three at the international. tribunal. So it mustn't be the ICJ, some sort of trade tribunal. And the federal government has to turn up and send lawyers. And here's the interesting thing. In the lawsuit, Palmer claims, and again, it's Palmer, that in July, a group of his lawyers, including his wife Anna, bizarrely enough, simultaneously got a request for a single use code from Microsoft. So the theory is that someone was trying to hack in to their Microsoft office. Or that's just normal Microsoft. Yeah. The password fuck up. So I don't know. So that's

the issue. And so Clive Palmer's claiming this is the Australian government hacking into... Oh, that's a little bit of a long bow, isn't it? Well, I would like to think, Charles, that if the Australian government wanted to hack into your email, you wouldn't get a single-use code request. They don't inform you. I don't remember East Timor back when we were spying on them for the Timor Gap Treaty and completely exploiting them. I don't remember them getting a Microsoft notification on their iPhone saying, are you trying to log into your East Timor email account? So this is what's going on. Okay, so this is interesting. because I feel like there's quite a lot at stake here.

Yeah, $300 billion. Like, it's not likely that Club Farm is going to win on the one hand. But on the other hand, if he does win, you know, that's, I mean, that's almost as much as we're going to spend on a submarine. You know, like, that's a lot of money. That's true. We're a submarine. We'd have to sell a submarine, right?

Yeah, very worrying. What I'm thinking is, and, you know, don't look down on me for this suggestion, Tom. But maybe we should just bribe the judges. Right. Because Australia's got quite a lot of money. Well, we did before the Submarino. We could spare, I don't know, like $100 million. And that would be the best $100 million investment we've ever made.

I mean, that would surely buy a judge. There's a tribunal three. They can have 33 million each. I mean, that's retired. Or 300 million. Isn't that sort of retired to a jurisdiction without extradition type money? Yes. No, and you'd pass an extradition law here that said the judges couldn't be extradited, invite them to come here.

And actually, you don't need... To Western Australia. You don't have to bribe three. You don't have to bribe two. That's true, just the majority. Yeah, and or, another way, that's a brilliant suggestion. Like, FIFA style. Yes, you just do it.

That's what FIFA would do. You'd do very European style, you know. You just give them an award. You wouldn't need to bribe them. Yes. You just say, congratulations, you have won the legal... Order of Australia. Order of Australia Award to be handed out in in Perth tomorrow.

Yes. And your prize is $100 million. The other thing we could do it. I'm surprised this hasn't happened already if I'm on it. The Australia Award for General Greatness. General's greatness and excellence in the course of fucking over Clive Palmer. Why didn't, and I'm honestly surprised that the former coalition, particularly given the link with Christian Porter, they didn't do this.

Why didn't they just buy the submarines from Clive Palmer, rather than Orcas, rather than the US and the UK? Yes. It would be very unlike Australia, not to just funnel money to a mining billionaire for no reason. Yes, they could cut a deal and say, look, Clive, you're not getting your mine, but here, do the submarine. And then the end result would be the same thing, which is, you wouldn't end up with a submarine. Frankly, he could form a joint venture, Clive Palmer, with Elon Musk. Yes. He's also very big on submarines.

You might remember from the Thai cave situation. Hypothetical submarines are his thing, right? Yes, yes. And I don't know. I can imagine Clive Palmer. calling someone who said no, a paedophile. Yep. A Elon style.

I'm surprised Clive and Elon don't work together already in some sort of joint venture. Because I think the thing that's most at stake here is not so much Clive Palmer getting $300 billion worth of our money. Yeah. It's the fact that he'll spend that entire $300 billion on fucking ads for the Clive Palmer Party. On mailing a CD to every Australian. United Australia Party.

Or, those fucking yellow billboards will be everywhere. Imagine $300 billion worth of yellow billboards. It would be literally on every corner. Yes. Or he'd spend it. I mean, the way Clive Palmer spends money is quite extraordinary. And if you've ever wanted to make the case that mining billionaires have too much money, the CD in the mail was literally evidence of that.

I don't remember the CD in the mail. Oh, you might have been in America at the time. There were just every, I was a DVD or a set. I didn't open it, but he sent to everyone. I think it must have been a DVD actually. Oh, and some sort of thing. It was a yellow ad for the Palmer United Party. And did you have to get sent an activation code?

Probably. Probably gave virus, I don't know. But the other things he spent money on. Who can forget Parmosaurus? Oh, yeah, no. A dinosaur theme park, which, by the way, turned a PGA tour-rated golf course into not being one anymore. Because you can't apparently play.

This is sad. It's sad to me that you can't play a pro-golf event where there are animatronic dinosaurs. I think that would add to any golf tournament. Palm Cove, yeah. We actually looked into the legality. of mining. Palm Cove. That would be great.

So the thing is, in Queensland, it costs $100 to apply for an exploratory license, mining license. What a good idea. But you can't do it in residential areas. You can do it in basically any land owned by anyone that is zoned in a particular way. And his golf course was zoned in some way, which made it possible to do. So for $100, we were going to be able to go and... Just go and dig.

Yeah, go and dig. In the middle of the fairway. Yeah, yeah. That's great. Yeah. It would have been fantastic. But unfortunately, the project was being done through the ABC. And the ABC thought it was the most appalling.

And we're going, it's only $100 and they're going, you don't understand. We should do that at the Star. You know they've had all these financial difficulties with... So the Star Casino in the same week, just to divert. I put this massive new casino in Brisbane. and also had this massive financial disaster. Yeah, well, they've asked for a handout from the government. They've asked for a federal government handout.

Yeah, literally the same way is opening this massive new, unnecessary. So there was an old casino in Brisbane, in the Treasury, and they wanted to get rid of that. How do you run a casino and lose? I thought the house always wins. Unless it's the star, or Donald Trump, the only other person who's managed to. I looked into this for the Trumpedia book that I did. Donald Trump built one successful casino in Atlantic City,

and it's doing really well. So he built another one, and that took, took money from the first one, and it didn't do so well. So he built a third one, the Trump, Taj Mahal, which had literal white elephants out the front. And then that went bankrupt. He sent all three of them bankrupt because he spent so much money on it. Anyway, the point being, I don't think Clive Palmer's going to make much money.

But we need to get on board. Do you think we should work for him? Like, do you think, would he sponsor the podcast do you, Clive Palmer? Or are there some people whose money we probably shouldn't take? I feel like being on the side against the Australian public, where the Australian public are going to be out-of-pocket $11,000 each. He's probably not the greatest career move we could make at this stage, Dom.

Yeah, it is edgy, though. It's edgy. It is edgy. It's controversial. It gets some media. Yeah. The other thing, it's quite funny, is what McGowan said in Parliament. So he, it was quite funny. He called, McGowan at the time, called Palmer the greediest man in Australian history,

accused him in being, accused him in, of being in league with China. and then said, Mr. Palmer has now surrendered himself in Australian history as the most appalling and selfish person our country has ever seen. Oh, wow. Which, which Carl Sanderlans said, Hobb might be here. Yeah, it's true. Nevertheless, the West's pretty wild, isn't it? I think we need to spend more time looking at West in Australia.

Maybe we should do the Perth Report. We should. Yeah. Firth on Perth. Perth on Perth. All right. So we'll have to watch how this one goes in the National Tribunal. Yeah.

But, I mean, in terms of sheer Hutzpark, Clive does. Yeah, oh, no, look, I'm... You've got to love the Hutzpah. I'm going to go home right now, and I'm going to research things I can sue the Australian government for. For several billion dollars. Yeah. Just quietly, you could probably make some sort of a case relating to your face right now. Oh, honestly, go back and look at the episode.

Yeah. If you want to dress up for Halloween, I honestly think Charles Firth today is enough for you. So nice to be back with you, Charles. Our gear is from Moved, a part of the Icona class network, and we will catch you tomorrow. See you. I hope you have. Is your face going to get you? get better or worse from here?

I've got nine more weeks. Holy shit. Yeah. Okay, so you're... I'm fucked. Yeah, okay. Well, look, at least you have an excuse for having a face as red as part of be choices. Thank you for your patience.

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