[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

Despite the government’s commitment to cutting emissions and reaching net zero, Australia’s gas industry is expanding and we’re making it easier for gas companies to do their business.

So, who is behind the gas lobby? Who puts the most pressure on our politicians, and are they the usual suspects?

Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on how the gas lobby is changing - and why foreign governments are taking an interest in Australia.

It’s Thursday, March 7.

[Theme Music Ends]

ANGE:

Mike, Australia is a huge producer of gas, one of the biggest in the world, and today I want to ask you about who exactly keeps it that way. Who's influencing our policies on gas?

MIKE:

Well, you're quite right, Australia is plentiful in gas. We were at one stage the biggest, a couple of years ago, the biggest in the world. But anyway we're also plentiful in resource billionaires and millionaires. And when you look into who keeps us exporting gas to be burned all over the world, it's worth starting with them.

And probably the first one to mention and someone a lot of Australians will be familiar with.

And that's Gina Rinehart, of course, Australia's richest person.

Rinehart has been a public figure for a long time now, and people might be familiar with some of her more colourful moments. You know, they would deal with her multiple legal actions against her late father's widow, Rose, in which she claimed that Rose had literally nagged her father to death. There's her continuing feud with some of her children who claimed she dudded them out of billions of dollars.

There's her, poetry, of course. Which, I've seen, has been claimed to be the worst in the world by some online sites.

Audio Excerpt - Q&A:

“Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has penned a poem to express her political ethos, and it's now inscribed on a giant block of iron ore outside a Perth shopping centre.”

MIKE:

And, and I've got to say, it’s some of the worst art and the worst poetry you will ever see. If I may?

ANGE:

Please.

MIKE:

I might just read you a couple of lines from this one, which was a poem written in opposition to the former government's proposals for a mining tax. And here are just two lines:

Develop north Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores,
To benefit from export of our minerals and ores.

Now, apart from the fact that she only wants short-term foreign workers, which is questionable in itself I mean, it just doesn't scan, you know, iambic pentameter it ain’t.

ANGE:

The rhyme in there wasn't there.

MIKE:

Shores and ores.

ANGE:

Shores and ores.

MIKE:

Anyway, it's a terrible poem. And there's lots more terrible couplets in there as well. More seriously, Gina Rinehart is very concerned with lobbying to make sure that Australia keeps digging up more minerals in general and more fossil fuels in particular. And in fact, she's so passionate about it she's not just content with taking it on herself, she's been urging other mining and gas companies to get more involved in politics.

ANGE:

Right, so what exactly has she been saying and what kind of impact is that having?

MIKE:

Well, she says that at multiple forums, for example, she gave a speech in November last year to a bunch of mining execs at her Roy Hill mine. Peter Dutton was there as well, I might add. But it was at that speech that she said she wanted more miners in politics so they could tear up environmental regulations and other things that she sees as slowing mining developments. Anyway in pursuit of all of this, she's advanced various and inaccurate arguments and some quite bizarre ones, frankly. But she makes them very forcefully.

Audio Excerpt - Conference Speaker:

“Now is the time tonight, when we have the opportunity to listen to and recognise the thoughts and the ideas of the founder and co-patron of National Agriculture and Related Industries. Please welcome Mrs. Gina Rinehart to the stage.”

MIKE:

In a speech to mark National Agriculture and Related Industries Day last November she warned that Australians would face huge hikes in fresh food prices and shortages of food supply, not because of climate change, but because of policies used to address climate change. She reckoned, for example, that prices would go up because farmers would have to buy electric vehicles and install solar panels.

Audio Excerpt - Gina Rinehart:

“The real expense of net zero policies is hidden. Yet, the expense for those in agriculture of net zero is so huge.”

MIKE:

She reckoned that the answer to increasingly prevalent bushfires was clearing more land, knocking down more trees.

And here’s the really weird one. She said that up to a third of Australia's agricultural land could be lost to the building of solar and wind farms, which is an astonishing statistic, if it were true. But it's not true.

Audio Excerpt - Gina Rinehart:

“It is estimated that one third of prime agricultural land will be taken over. What do you think this will mean to fresh, quality food availability and prices?”

MIKE:

The best research I could find on this came from the Clean Energy Council, which says that if you replaced all of Australia's current coal-fired power stations with solar farms, it would take 0.016% of the country's land.

Audio Excerpt - Gina Rinehart:

“We need to bring more good people experienced in primary industries, loaded with patriotism and common sense, into our political parties and parliaments.”

MIKE:

The point I'm making here is that Rinehart is out there, using all sorts of weird, wonderful arguments, to try and convince people, in particular the coal and gas industry figures, to do more and get more involved in politics.

ANGE:

And I mean, how much is the industry involved in lobbying already? And does Gina have a shot at convincing the industry to get even more involved in politics?

MIKE:

Well, the truth is the fossil fuel already exercises a lot of influence, you know, through donations.

For one, in the decade to 2017, according to a calculation done by the Australia Institute that went through all the official reporting to the Electoral Commission, the mining industry disclosed donations of just under $50 million to federal political parties. And of that, 81% went to the coalition. But that's undoubtedly a gross understatement. It's really much higher because Australia's donation laws are just riddled with loopholes.

The point is here, I guess there's already a lot of money pouring into politics from the resources sector and from the fossil fuel sector in particular. When it comes to increasing influence Ange, there are some new players who are getting involved too with the lobbying effort, and I think they're particularly significant and they're not who you might expect. You know, it's not the billionaires. It's not domestic fossil fuel companies. It's actually foreign governments. And they’re beginning to take a big interest in influencing our politicians and influencing coal and gas policy. Essentially because they haven't done enough themselves to transition to renewables.

ANGE:

After the break, which foreign governments are influencing Australian politics over coal and gas?

[Advertisement]

ANGE:

Mike, It's one thing for really wealthy Australian mining magnates to influence our government, but it's quite another for foreign governments to want to make Australia keep pumping and producing gas. How are they doing that?

MIKE:

Well, I was particularly struck by something that happened just a year ago, March last year, which is when the Embassy of Japan posted the transcript of a speech, to its website. It was a speech given to a supposedly private function in Parliament House and it was given by Takayuki Ueda, the CEO of a Japanese resources company, who was out visiting Australia and it wasn't any old speech. It was at a function organised by the Australian resources minister Madeleine King, There were other politicians there, and in it Ueda really laid down the law to the Australian government.

He began by expressing his displeasure with the government's decision to cap the domestic gas price and to prevent gas companies from diverting supplies offshore to take advantage of what were then sky high global coal and gas prices. He said Australia's energy policy appeared to be ideologically driven. He said it threatened to choke investment. He demanded greater certainty in policy direction and a stable regulatory framework. He singled out the Albanese government's planned safeguard mechanism, which was at that stage being debated. And what it would have done was require big emitters of greenhouse gas to progressively cut their emissions. And what Ueda argued was that this would require all new gas fields tied to existing LNG facilities to be essentially net zero from day one, which is right, I might add. And he said that would be unworkable without carbon capture and storage, which of course is a process that as we all know now is highly dubious and may never be affordable.

So, what I think is interesting here in the Ueda speech was that here he was giving this speech, and here was the Japanese embassy, you know, an arm of the Japan's Foreign Ministry posting the transcript. You know, essentially giving it diplomatic weight and that weight is significant because Japan is actually Australia's second biggest trading partner. And anyway, the government eventually acceded to lobbying to allow more carbon capture and storage. Some months later, it passed legislation amending something called the Sea Dumping Act. So it allowed gas companies to sequester carbon dioxide in holes under the seafloor. And during that debate, there was a very telling moment I think because the government had staunchly resisted attempts by the Greens and the crossbenchers to find out what was the impetus for this policy change? They wouldn't say whose interests they were acting in. And then the opposition parties came on board, and for a while it looked like the whole thing was going to lose.

Audio Excerpt - Penny Wong:

“You are voting with the Greens against legislation you support, you are voting with The Greens against legislation you support.”

MIKE:

And Penny Wong, the foreign minister, basically did a block in the Senate and she said to the opposition.

Audio Excerpt - Penny Wong:

“You know what you’ve been doing. You've said no to Santos, you've said no to Woodside, you've said no to Inpex, you've said no to Korea, and you've said no to Japan. You’ve said yes to this.”

MIKE:

Which I think was pretty significant because it actually indicated that it wasn't just corporate interests, it was actual governments that this legislation was meant to appease.

ANGE:

And Mike, obviously, countries around the world want to buy gas. But why is it, do you think, they're so concerned about Australian gas and want to make sure they can still access our supply in particular?

MIKE:

Well, in general, gas is not cheap. Particularly since Russia invaded Ukraine. And Ueda made this point. He essentially said that, you know, if Australia wasn't in the game, someone else would have to replace the Australian supply.

And from their perspective, even though there are lots of countries with gas, there are difficulties, right? There are sanctions imposed on Russia. It's difficult to deal with China. So Australian gas and gas policy is, incredibly important to the likes of Japan and Korea and others in the region.

The question of foreign power and why Japan would want to influence Australian policy, at least in this case, that I've been looking into, is an even bigger issue, because Ueda’s company is deeply enmeshed with the Japanese government. Ueda is not just another company executive. He's a former functionary with the Japanese government, as he pointed out to his audience in Parliament House that day, his company Inpex was founded as a state owned entity back in the 1960s, with a mandate to contribute to Japan's energy security.

And even after it was floated on the stock market, it remains the only company in which the Japanese government maintains a “golden share” to prevent a takeover. So, the Japanese government actually holds about 21%, I think it is, of Inpex shares.

So, when Ueda spoke about Japan's energy security, he wasn't just talking about his company board. He was talking about the case of the Japanese government.

ANGE:

And so Mike, between billionaires like Gina Rinehart and foreign companies, it seems like at a time when you might expect the gas industry's influence to be waning it could, from what you're saying, actually be growing. So if we step back, how concerned should we be about the gas industry's influence over our politicians?

MIKE:

Well, we've seen a couple examples now of what might be called Made in Japan policy. The one that I referred to, the sea dumping legislation, is one.

I think what we’re seeing is a growth in foreign government influence on Australian policy, which I think is a bit worrying. But beyond that, I mean, the influence of the lobby is already written all over the CV's of our political class. You know, several former leaders of parties have ended up at oil and gas companies.

If you look at the staff and the offices of the last few prime ministers, many of the most powerful staffers have had stints in oil and gas companies. A bunch of former resources ministers either came from the gas lobby into government or to either ministerial or advisory jobs and then after they left, they went back to the industry. So there's this revolving door that keeps spinning faster and faster.

So, you know, as you say the industry should be winding down if we're going to do the right thing by the climate. But at the moment it doesn't appear to be the case. You know, the efforts are winding up and I think that's a cause for some concern.

ANGE:

Mike thanks so much for your time today.

MIKE:

Thank you.

[Advertisement]

[Theme Music Starts]

ANGE:

Also in the news today,

The Greens have launched their first policy for the next federal election: a commitment to establish a ‘public property developer’ which would see the Commonwealth build homes and sell or rent them for below market prices.

Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, Greens MP and spokesperson for housing Max Chandler Mather, said the plan would involve building 360,000 homes over the next five years and they would be available to any renter or first home buyer.

And Qantas has been fined $250,000 for illegally standing down a worker during the pandemic after he raised concerns about the risk of COVID infection for staff who were cleaning planes.

A New South Wales district court judge said the conduct by Qantas Ground Services, a subsidiary of Qantas, was “quite shameful” and that it had “deliberately ignored” parts of the Work Health and Safety Act.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

[Theme Music Ends]