Quote:
Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo
The fact that they're rushing 'emergency legislation' through parliament makes me think they know they're in trouble legally or that Clive Palmer is in with a good chance of winning.
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Err not exactly. I know, sometimes we're a difficult people to understand.
In all seriousness, Palmer will need a police escort if he ever plans to step foot in WA again. There are a lot of people quite happy to bash him on sight.
He has voluntarily made himself "Pubic Enemy #1" in WA. Ask Julia Gillard how that feels.
As a direct consequence, The WA Government has introduced the "F_ck You Clive Bill of 2020" into parliament, and it will pass with unanimous support.
Palmer is a lunatic and a malcontent who has made sure he will never do business in WA again.
And every time he tries, the government will shut him down. And then if necessary pass legislation to absolve themselves of any wrong doing.
And there's nothing he can do about it.
Providing they stick to ****ing him over in areas under state control (eg mining) there is nothing the High Court can do.
I haven't read his current challenge, but assume he's attacking us under s92, which purportedly prevents governments from interfering in the movement of good and PEOPLE between the states.
But he has a few problems:
1) Firstly, it is a Free Trade clause, and has always been interpreted as such, and refers specifically to the imposition of duties.
2) Secondly, there have been numerous exceptions allowed by the courts and of course the biggest is quarantine. Very hard to bring fresh produce into WA.
3) We're not stopping people from travelling, simply enforcing quarantine. The question then becomes whether that is onerous or puts an unfair burden on interstate labour. And at 2 weeks, it would be hard to claim that it did.
4) Being as it was, written in the 19th century, it refers only to shipping and internal carriage. So it could only be used to force open our land and seas borders, not our airports.
5) Any ruling to force open land borders would immediately be appealed by every government.
6) Even if land borders were opened, we have the ironic luxury of only having two roads, and we can simply close them.