STEVE MILLS, HOST: Clive Palmer's suing the federal government for $300 billion. If that's not weird in itself, the guy who's the head lawyer, and there's about 10 of them, is Christian Porter, who was the former Federal Attorney-General, and I would say was probably in power when the allegations are that the government didn't do what it should have done, and that he didn't have any luck with WA so now I'm gonna have a crack at the nation. I want to go to Geneva, I don't understand what this is about. Can you explain it to me?
KARL LANGDON, HOST: Well, you’d think he’d know the laws.
MILLS: Well, reportedly right? So, he's got a Singaporean based company called Zephyr which is essentially under Mineralogy. And the claim is, is the damages of $186 billion are said to be for sovereign risk created after the WA laws commercially destroyed the project of any future projects. So, he reckons, Clive this is, had another three or four projects that he could have got off the ground, and he's been forbidden from doing them.
LANGDON: Right, but don't you think it's strange that the former Attorney-General is his lead lawyer?
MILLS: Well, you’d think he’d know, wouldn’t you? You’d think he’d know what went on.
LANGDON: Patrick Gorman, who’s the federal Labor member for Perth, has actually rung the programme on this topic. Can you explain it to us? Good morning.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Steve, Karl, I just can't explain it. This is just the most like, what is going on? We went through this for two years with Clive and now he's back on the front pages again, I don't know if he just wants some attention. But he does have a pretty, pretty high-profile team there. Christian Porter is the former Liberal Attorney-General. Sort of playing both sides of the street. He probably would have, had this happened a year ago, he would have had to defend this case. Now he's prosecuting it. It's just… I reckon, people will be picking up the paper this morning and rolling their eyes.
LANGDON: Well, I don't quite understand it. I mean Christian Porter is just starting his own legal practice, he can represent anyone he likes. But it’s just kind of like you're, you're on one side of the argument and then you're on the other side of the argument. It doesn't make sense to me.
GORMAN: It doesn't make sense to me either. And this is also quite serious. It's all well and good to laugh at what is a very funny front page of Austin Powers, quite a throwback there. But this is $300 billion we're talking about. We've already got a trillion dollars of debt, the last thing Australia needs is more debt and taking taxpayer money and putting it into Clive Palmer's pocket.
LANGDON: So, he claims that he could have undertaken another three or four projects, but he's been limited in Western Australia for the reasons of the laws that have been created. And he also claims that the WA law breaches Asian Australian New Zealand free trade deal that includes Singapore, how do we respond to this?
GORMAN: Well, obviously the Australian government contests all of those points. This is a lawsuit we will have to vigorously defend, right. It is a nuisance, and it's because he's been playing with Mark McGowan for years in these lawsuits. And clearly Clive Palmer has got sick of suing Mark McGowan. And now he's coming after Prime Minister Albanese and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
MILLS: It’s an intriguing one, no doubt. It'll be the gossip around the halls today. We appreciate your time.
GORMAN: Thanks.
MILLS: Patrick Gorman there, Federal Labor Member.