Revealed: The Extent Of Job-Swapping Between Public Servants And Fossil Fuel Lobbyists

The Conversation - Adam Lucas

A building full of revolving doors? Ben McCarthy/Wikimedia Commons

Last month Australia slipped further down the rankings in the international corruption index. Among a wide range of factors cited by Transparency International was Australia’s “inappropriate industry lobbying in large-scale projects such as mining”, as well as “revolving doors and a culture of mateship”.
As several high-profile cases have recently revealed, the close ties that continue to exist between senior politicians, former political staffers, and the big end of town have had a real and lasting impact on the perception of political transparency in Australia.
Two examples from 2016 and 2017 clearly illustrate the extent to which such relationships can have a toxic effect on democracy.
During last year’s Queensland election campaign, the ABC revealed that Cameron Milner, former Queensland secretary of the ALP and chief of staff to federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, had been the main lobbyist and go-between for Indian mining giant Adani.
Earlier in the year, it was reported that former federal trade minister Andrew Robb walked straight out of his ministerial position in July 2016 to take up a lucrative position as a “high-level consultant” for Chinese-owned company Landbridge. This was the same firm that Robb had publicly defended when it controversially acquired a 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin in 2015.
The cases of Milner and Robb not only suggest that such influence-peddling is politically bipartisan in nature, but that it can happen both during and after the relevant parties have left their positions in the public sector.

Revolving door or golden escalator?
Much has been made in recent weeks of the provisions contained in the federal parliamentary code of conduct. Among other things, the code bans former ministers from lobbying the federal government for 18 months after leaving office. But given the fact that no current or former minister has been deemed to be non-compliant (including Robb), one could be forgiven for concluding that the code is simply a cover for business as usual.
Several prominent public figures and NGOs, including The Australia Institute and urban planner Julie Walton, have argued that the mining, energy, property and gaming industries enjoy favourable treatment in exchange for their generous political donations, or at least are perceived to. There’s also widespread public acceptance that the resources industry was instrumental in removing Kevin Rudd from the prime ministership in 2010.
What is less well known is the extent to which big business has sought to bend the will of the body politic by directly influencing the formation of government policy.
This is not just done through lobbying. All of these industries have been proactive in courting individuals who hold public office in relevant portfolios as potential allies and future employees. Some are employed as lobbyists, some as advisors, some as consultants, and others as board members and company directors. This allows these industries to shape tax and regulatory regimes in their favour, and to drive major government and private sector investments in their own infrastructure.
The phenomenon we seek to highlight has previously been referred to as the “revolving door” between the political and corporate realms. But although there is ample evidence for these kinds of arrangements, on closer inspection they look more like a golden escalator. The financial rewards on offer in the private sector can dwarf anything received by senior politicians and public servants while in office.
For evidence of this dynamic, we need only to look to former resource ministers Martin Ferguson and Ian Macfarlane. Ferguson took up a position as a non-executive director of British Gas just weeks after leaving federal politics in September 2013, having already become chair of an advisory board for Australia’s oil and gas peak body, APPEA in October. Macfarlane, meanwhile, was appointed chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council only four months after leaving federal politics.

Current and past resource industry employment of former staffers of Ian Macfarlane (Federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Sep 2013 - Sep 2015), Martin Ferguson (Federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Nov 2007 - Mar 2013) and Campbell Newman (Queensland Premier, Mar 2012 - Feb 2015) over the past decade, and employment for Macfarlane and Ferguson since leaving office. Corporate entities are shown in purple, staffers in green, and politicians in orange. LARGE IMAGE

The ‘service elevator’
There is another strategy that has also been used to great effect by the fossil fuel and mining industries in recent years. It is also used by powerful corporations in other economic sectors such as agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, gaming, and construction.
The industries in question either hire former ministerial staffers and policy analysts with relevant knowledge and expertise to advise them, or they encourage their own former staffers to take on positions as government advisers while maintaining close links with them. When acting as staffers, these individuals are free to operate outside of public scrutiny and regulatory reach. This allows them to move seamlessly between the offices of powerful political figures and some of Australia’s largest resource companies and industry bodies.
We have compiled a database of more than 180 individuals who have moved between positions in the fossil fuel and/or mining industries and senior positions in government, or vice versa, over the past decade. This includes senior political staffers working for prime ministers and state premiers. We have also found examples of key ministers hiring individuals straight from the fossil fuel and mining industries, who then return to those industries straight after leaving government. This revolving door might be better dubbed a “service elevator”, ensuring that “delivery of the goods” happens away from public scrutiny.

Organisations highlighted in red have the most former public sector employees in their company. Mai Lam/The Conversation NY-BD-CC, CC BY-ND
LARGE IMAGE

Questions of influence
Australian governments clearly need to enact laws at the state and federal levels to prevent these kinds of activities.
We know that such legislation is not without precedent, and is therefore politically feasible. For example, in Ireland, the cooling-off period was recently set at one year, whereas in Canada it is two years and in the United States, five years.
But it is not just the rules around political lobbying that require reform. Many other areas of political activity are also in dire need of attention, including much stronger disclosure laws in relation to campaign financing and political party donations, and a significant increase in public funding for political parties, apportioned on the basis of electoral support.
Most significant, however, is the need for a federal anti-corruption body with independent investigative powers. While there has been resistance from the major political parties to the creation of a federal anti-corruption watchdog, it would appear that the tide is turning. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently countenanced such a move, as did Bill Shorten.
If our political leaders are not prepared to provide more transparency and accountability with respect to government decision-making, then we can only assume the resource extraction industries will continue to call the shots on Australia’s transport and energy policies.
Our collective failure to deal with these issues will ensure that the increasingly dire predictions about planetary boundaries being breached over the next few decades will indeed be realised.

Links

• Why businesses want the ear of government and are willing to pay for it
• Australia's lobbying laws are inadequate, but other countries are getting it right
• Corruption Perceptions Index 2017
• Codes of conduct in Australian and selected overseas parliaments
• The growing case for a federal anti-corruption agency
• Planetary boundaries
• How Corruption Affects Climate Change

Arctic Transformed Into Alien Landscape In Surreal Climate Change Photo

Inverse Science - Yasmin Tayag

The "browning" process has dramatically transformed the terrain.



Gone are the days when we could count on the Arctic landscape to be painted in shades of white. The permafrost beneath the snow and ice is no longer permanently frosty, and as it melts, write researchers in a new study, it’s muddying up the once-pristine terrain — quite literally. In a startling photo accompanying the study, an array of Arctic and sub-Arctic lakes seem to spew filth from within, making the landscape look like the surface of an alien world.
The paper, published in Limnology and Oceanography Letters on Friday, describes the visible effects the thawing permafrost has on the surface of the neighboring terrain, many feet above it. As climate change warms the Earth and coaxes the permafrost out of its continually frozen state, a process called “browning” occurs, the researchers write. During this process, organic carbon once trapped deep in the permafrost seeps upward into the region’s lakes and ponds, suffusing them with a filthy brown hue. Meanwhile, the way the permafrost cracks the landscape above it creates fissures that divide the surface into eerie polygonal shapes.
In the image below, supplied in a release by Quebec, Canada’s INRS (*Institut national de la recherche scientifique), the muddiness of the browning lakes sharply contrasts with the clear blue of the larger body of water alongside them, though even it too shows sinister brown tendrils curling up along its edges.
Here’s an aerial photo of Bylot Island, which lies off the northern side of Baffin Island in the Nunavut territory of Canada, southwest of Greenland:

Carbon seeping up from the thawing permafrost turns lakes and ponds brown.

Browning doesn’t just make the collection of lakes look like the sickly cells of an alien organism’s skin. The biggest downside of all that organic carbon seeping to the surface, INRS biologist Isabelle Laurion, Ph.D. and her co-authors write, is that this carbon is really good at absorbing sunlight, which drives up the temperature — and thus the rate of permafrost melt — even faster.
Laurion and colleagues determined this by analyzing the different types of dissolved organic matter in 253 ponds around the North Pole, which showed them that the waters affected by thawing permafrost contained much more terrestrial carbon and less algae (a key element to the food chain in these waters). “Our results demonstrate a strong terrestrial imprint on freshwater ecosystems in degrading ice-rich permafrost catchments, and the likely shift toward increasing dominance of land-derived organic carbon in waters with ongoing permafrost thaw,” they write.
In a paper published in Scientific Reports in 2015, researchers outlined the ecological effects of browning. In the lake they studied, over the course of 27 years, surface water temperatures increased by 2–3 degrees Celcius, the lakes became five times more transparent to UV light, and levels of zooplankton (near the bottom of the food chain) decreased.

Polygonal lakes created by melting permafrost on Alaska's North Slope. INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE, NASA/JPL-Caltech

But perhaps the worst effect of browning is that it creates conditions even more conducive to releasing even more carbon into the air — particularly in the form of the greenhouse gas methane — which will in turn speed up the climate change process by which the permafrost melts in the first place.
“Land-derived organic carbon is having a growing influence on Arctic and subarctic ponds, which carries over into the food web,” the authors said in a statement. “The browning of these systems leads to oxygen depletion and cooler water at the bottom of the ponds, which can have a major impact on the microbial activity responsible for the production and consumption of greenhouse gases, particularly the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.”
 
Links

• Scientists Estimate Permafrost Carbon Loop for First Time
• Thawing permafrost causing the 'browning' of northern lakes
• Increasing dominance of terrigenous organic matter in circumpolar freshwaters due to permafrost thaw
• Ecological consequences of long-term browning in lakes
• Arctic Warming: Scientists Alarmed By 'Crazy' Temperature Rises
• Alaska's Bering Sea Lost A Third Of Its Ice In Just 8 Days
• Arctic Climate Change Being Felt Farther South, Scientists Say
• Arctic Sea Ice Outlook At Worst Point In 125,000 Years
• Sea Level Warning As Greenland Darkens
• Why a Warming Arctic May Be Causing Colder U.S. Winters
• Arctic Stronghold Of World’s Seeds Flooded After Permafrost Melts
• More Than 90 Scientists Release Report That Arctic Is ‘Unravelling’
• Arctic Ice In Retreat
• Human-Caused Climate Change Causes Unprecedented Arctic Heatwave, Scientists Say
• 'The Arctic Is Unraveling,' Scientists Conclude After Latest Sobering Climate Report

Federal Government To Lend Money To Adani Business Associates

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham

An obscure government agency plans to indirectly support Adani’s controversial mega-coal mine by financing a business that will supply the project, it has emerged.
The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, which provides loans to exporters, is also considering inquiries from other Adani suppliers, and held discussions with Adani representatives as recently as last month.

The Adani Carmichael project has encountered strong public opposition. Photo: AAP

The revelations raise questions over whether the government is using back-door routes to prop up the Adani project, and will fuel debate over public funding for mining projects in Australia.
EFIC did not respond to Fairfax Media’s questions over what firms would receive or had applied for funding, the level of funding provided or the implications for the loans if the mine did not proceed.
The $16.5 billion project planned by the Indian mining giant would be Australia’s largest coal mine and would open coal reserves in Queensland’s Galilee Basin to further development.
But the proposal has struggled to secure private sector backing. Adani’s bid for a concessional loan of around $900 million under the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to build a rail line servicing the mine, was also vetoed by the Queensland government, leaving the company to “look at other funding options”.

Labor leader Bill Shorten is under pressure to reveal what his party's policy is on the Adani coal mine, with the government saying he's playing both sides.

At a Senate estimates hearing late on Thursday night, Export Finance and Insurance Corporation general counsel John Hopkins confirmed the agency was supporting businesses supplying the Indian mining giant.
“We have helped support some SMEs [small to medium enterprises] who’ve been involved in the supply chain to Adani, so not directly to Adani itself but small [enterprises] who may have provided services to that entity,” he said.

Adani's application for a public loan to fund a rail line from the mine to its Abbot Point coal terminal was thwarted by the Queensland Labor government. Photo: Glenn Hunt

Asked by Labor senator Alex Gallacher to give an example of a business that might receive support, Mr Hopkins cited “a small SME providing mining services as a subcontractor to that project, and potentially a subcontractor to a subcontractor”.
“They would come to us seeking funds, they would show us that they have a contract to supply certain goods and services, they need working capital or they need a loan to help them provide those services and given that the end result would [mean] an export for Australia we are able to fund them,” he said.
One company supplying the Carmichael project is expected to receive funding, and several other Adani suppliers have made inquiries.
The corporation was founded with taxpayer money but is now self-funded. The government can direct EFIC to lend money if it is in the “national interest” and must reimburse the corporation for any losses. The organisation's national interest loan facility recently received a $3.8 billion funding boost for defence exports and it is unclear what funds would be available for Adani should it make an application.
Also at the estimates hearing, EFIC chief executive Swati Dave confirmed it had “fielded some inquiries from Adani representatives” in mid-February, when “two or three people from each side had a chat”.
Ms Dave did not detail the conversation, but said it broadly covered “what our function is”. Adani had not applied for finance, she said. Adani confirmed on Monday it did not intend to apply.

Adani opponents say the mine will add to global warming and worsen coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Gary Cranitch

In September last year Trade Minister Steve Ciobo instructed EFIC to start supporting onshore resource projects.
Tom Swann, researcher at progressive think-tank the Australia Institute, said providing financial help to Adani suppliers was “another way for the federal government to support the [Carmichael] project.” He called on Mr Ciobo to rule out government support for the mine, saying the world was promising action on climate change and the "last thing we should be doing is subsidising the world’s biggest new export thermal coal mine".
Mr Ciobo said EFIC “has not been asked to finance the Adani Carmichael coal project” but Adani was entitled to seek funding.
The agency’s commercial account provides finance up to about $150 million, and lending decisions are at EFIC’s discretion. Under its national interest account, finance is uncapped.
Federal Labor says it will only support the Carmichael mine if it stacks up financially. In February, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten reportedly told a Townsville crowd: "If they want to use EFIC or any other form of government funding body to get the money - no, no, no".

Links

• Shorten Says Talk About Adani Mine 'Dumbing Down Climate Debate'
• Bill Shorten Says There's A 'Role For Coal' And Adani Mine Just 'Another Project'
• Could A Future Labor Government Really Stop The Adani Mine?
• Labor Pushes For Federal Investigation Into Adani
• Adani Coalmine Won't Get Federal Rail Funding, Liberal Minister Says
• Big Surge In Opposition To Adani, New Polling Reveals
• Shorten Hails Cheap Wind And Solar, But Will He Stop Adani?
• Adani Parts Ways With Mining Services Company Downer Over Proposed Carmichael Mine
• Qld Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk Seeks To Veto Adani Loan
• Another Blow For Adani As Chinese Backers Pull Out
• NSW Coal Mines In The Pipeline Are 'Bigger Than Adani', Lock The Gate Says
• Queensland Election: How Adani Helped Undo The LNP's Push To Regain Power

While Politicians Question The Reality Of Climate Change, Farmers And Businesses Act

ABC Four Corners - Michael Brissenden

David Bruer has been growing vines and making wine at his Temple Bruer vineyard in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia since 1978. (Four Corners)

Four Corners: Weather Alert Program and Transcript

David Bruer has been growing vines and making wine at his Temple Bruer vineyard in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia since 1978.

In his vineyard laboratory, weather records for every vintage for nearly 40 years are stacked in plastic folders.

David Bruer says they've brought their harvest forward by a month. (Four Corners)

They clearly show a steady increase in maximum temperatures over that time of about 1 degree. It might seem like a relatively small change but the impact has been dramatic.
Harvested fruit is turning up hotter. The sugar levels are higher and the vintage now has to be picked earlier.
"Thirty-four years ago we used to pick in the middle of March," he said.
"We're now picking in the middle of February."

Graziers, fruit growers on the front line of change
The world is getting warmer and from the farm gate to the boardroom Australian businesses are no longer waiting for the politicians to decide if climate change is real. They're acting now.
In fact wine — one of our most celebrated crops — happens to be one of the most sensitive to environmental changes.
Last year was the third hottest year ever recorded in Australia and this year, NASA announced the five hottest years on earth on record had occurred since 2010.
It's a conclusion drawn from painstaking, technically advanced research, but increasingly Australian farmers are watching their own simpler weather charts with growing concern.
Many are now too busy adapting to this new climate reality to wait for our political leadership to deliver effective policy responses.
Over the past few months, Four Corners has travelled across the country to gauge how Australians are adapting. Graziers, fruit growers and winemakers are among those feeling the impact.

Brown Brothers were climate sceptics, once

Brown Brothers moves part of its operation to Tasmania (ABC News)

About 800 kilometres to the east of Temple Bruer, Ross Brown from Brown Brothers Wines has an even longer weather record on file.
His family has been making wine in Milawa, Victoria, for almost 130 years.
Mr Brown says he used to be a climate change sceptic but his vintage charts are indicating things have changed.
In Milawa, Brown Brothers is also picking earlier and their records show temperatures are rising.
Some of the cool climate varieties his family always used to grow here — like pinot noir and sparkling whites — have now become too unreliable so the company has moved some of its operation to cooler country in Tasmania.
"We decided that we would do our planning in future on a two-degrees increase in our vineyard temperatures and that we would have less water available," Mr Brown said.
"Making a strategic decision has really changed the way we look at our vineyards."
But if average temperature rises go beyond two degrees then, he says, the options run out.
"We don't know where to go after Tasmania," he said.
Brown Brothers is a big operation. Their winemaking is on an industrial scale and the decision to adapt to the changing weather was driven by the company's board.

Corporate Australia has been warned
It's a shift being seen in boardrooms around the country. Corporate Australia has been warned. The changing climate is something they can no longer ignore.
Last November, Geoff Summerhayes, an executive member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), told businesses climate change posed a material risk to the entire financial system.
His message was that boards and directors had a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to take it into account. He cited legal opinion that found company directors who failed to consider and disclose climate risk could be in breach of the Corporations Act.
"Climate change and society's responses to it are starting to affect the global economy," he said.

"Institutions that fail to adequately plan for this transition put their own futures in jeopardy, with subsequent consequences for their account holders, members or policy holders."

That's a view that's now been backed by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe.
On February 16, he told a sitting of the Federal Parliament's economics committee that the Council of Financial Regulators - a body he chairs - had established a working group to look at issues about disclosure.
The RBA confirmed it believed investors needed to be given more information on climate risk.
It might seem a small move but it's seen as highly significant in the corporate world.
Former treasury economist Sam Hurley is a specialist in corporate climate risk. He says the moves by the regulators send a powerful message.
"The RBA and APRA, they're big institutions. They don't take steps lightly. They're not talking about climate on a whim," he said.
"They've studied the evidence, they've looked at what their counterparts are doing internationally, and they've looked at the trends and risks in Australia, and they've decided that now's the time to raise the bar."
For Australian business, business as usual is no longer an option.

Links

• Farmers For Climate Action
• Climate change - issues for farmers
• Australian farmers are adapting to climate change
• Climate change and agriculture
• Australia's Farmers Challenged by Climate Change