| Anna Bligh? Pwned? |
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Premier Anna Bligh may soon be digging deep into taxpayer’s pockets.
Recently Anna has got herself into hot water with this statement about Queensland's richest man Professor Clive Palmer:
"It's not unusual for rich men to buy football teams, as Mr Palmer has done. What is not common, and what I don't think is good for democracy, is when they buy a political party. The question you have to ask is what Mr Palmer is getting from this."
This is most imprudent and seems, on the face of it, defamatory on a couple of counts.
First, Ms Bligh has implied that the LNP, the recipient of Mr Palmer’s largesse, has been bought by the mining magnate.
Second, she implies that he is deriving a benefit of some kind from ‘buying’ the party.
Now Ms Bligh has huffed and puffed and intimated she is not afraid of the action Mr Palmer has taken, and he is well within his rights to protect his reputation, but she should re-think what she does next.
On Friday, lawyers for the billionaire - Queensland's richest person - delivered legal documents to Ms Bligh's office and a written apology for her to sign and "distribute to all Queensland and national media outlets and place on your website".
The way I see it she hasn’t a leg to stand on.
She can not claim parliamentary privilege – she wasn’t in parliament when she said it.
She can not claim political communication – the sort pollies use against each other – because Mr Palmer is not a politician.
She can not claim truth as a defence unless he is able to produce evidence he actually does own the party and does derive some benefit.
She, in layman’s terms, is up the creek, paddleless.
Will she care? I doubt it. She’s Labor and she will not hesitate to use our cash to argue the case. What’s a few million bucks to her? It isn’t hers.
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