WA Attorney-General Michael Mischin has denied he had a deal with his federal counterpart to keep the Commonwealth out of the state government's bid to claw back $1 billion from Alan Bond's collapsed Bell Group.
His denial comes despite WA Treasurer Mike Nahan telling parliament the day after the High Court shot down the Bell Group legislation in May that the state government thought it had a deal.
The bill sought to propel the WA government to the top of the list of Bell Group creditors, shunting others including the Australian Taxation Office, but was deemed invalid because it was unconstitutional.
That argument was the crux of a submission by the ATO and was run by then Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson despite George Brandis telling him he'd assured Mr Mischin there would be no federal government involvement, The West Australian newspaper reports.
Mr Mischin rejected the claim he had an arrangement with Mr Brandis but said they spoke about the legislation when it became apparent it would be challenged, and there was a question of whether the ATO would intervene.
"I did speak to Attorney-General Brandis with a view to persuading him against that course," Mr Mischin told reporters.
"He indicated to me, as presently advised, he was not inclined to intervene."
A few days before the High Court hearing, however, Mr Mischin was told the Commonwealth would be intervening.
"I sought to have meetings between our legal advisers and the Commonwealth legal advisers in order to try to resolve some of the arguments and see whether the legislation could be preserved while addressing the Commonwealth's concerns," he said.
"But that proved unsuccessful.
"It did not run the argument in respect of the corporations law that I understood was causing the trouble. In fact, it ran the arguments that the ATO wanted to run and for which it would have required leave to intervene."
Dr Nahan told parliament the day after the ruling the state government thought it had a deal with the Commonwealth not to oppose the bill.
And while the legislation had failed, it was at least "a noble effort" to try to end the Bell Group creditor carve-up - the nation's most expensive and longest-running legal case.
"Despite the deal we thought we had, the Australian Taxation Office thought that it had to have its say in the High Court," Dr Nahan said on May 17.
"We explored with the ATO and the Commonwealth how to achieve a return to them of up to $430 million, but we were not able to provide a guarantee for that amount of money."
Mr Mischin stopped short of confirming he'd had a "blazing row" with Mr Brandis, as reported, saying that was a matter of opinion.
"I put my views very robustly and my disappointment with the way the Commonwealth had conducted itself."
He said the concerns should have been dealt with through discussions.
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