Consumers aiming to be green at home warned on companies' credentials amid donations row

Australian consumers and shareholders looking to vote with their wallet on climate change and the environment have been warned their money could be being used to support parties with poor records on climate change.

Many companies that Australians may be considering bringing into their homes – developers, energy providers, and even construction material providers – espouse green credentials while still financially supporting the federal Coalition, which took no new emissions reductions and has its record on climate change regularly criticised by climate experts.

Julien Vincent, executive director of climate lobby group Market Forces, said claiming to want action on climate change and financially supporting the Coalition was hypocritical.

“It’s completely incongruent. It’s a company using shareholders’ and customers’ money to endorse the actions of a government taking us in a different direction on climate change,” he said. “If you’re donating to the entire party, you’re supporting everything that party does.”

Builders Hutchinsons, Lendlease were in this position, and developers Payce, Star Casinos, and Twynam Investment Group were too. BluescopeSteel mentions wanting to achieve emissions reductions targets in their sustainability policy, and all donated to the Coalition during the 2018-19 financial year, according to the Australian Electoral Commission’s political donations register.

Power companies Alinta and Origin were similar, and insurers IAG, Allianz and peak body Insurance Council of Australia donated to the Coalition too.

The above companies or organisations were all contacted for comment; only Star Entertainment, Lendlease, IAG and the Insurance Council responded.

IAG, or Insurance Australia Group, which is the parent company of several insurers including NRMA and CGU, said it had a strong record on climate, and were taking the Coalition’s pivot towards mitigation strategies as a victory but were still hopeful the government would take further steps.

Climate experts say the best way to deal with climate change is to cut emissions and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly ruled out any changes to reduction targets in Australia.

Of all the above companies, only Twynam Investments donated to the Coalition. Twynam calls itself an “Environmental focused Venture Capital” company on its website.

The companies and organisations that responded all told Domain they were paying for access to business forums, and to have a say in policy with both major parties. They would not answer whether or not they thought the money taken from the forums would be used to further the party’s political aims.

An ICA spokesman said it wasn’t paying with any policy goals in mind, but paying to “support a political process”.

Mr Vincent said the ability for anyone to pay large sums of money to impact policy was problematic.

“The phrase ‘paying to be a part of the political process’ shouldn’t be anywhere near that. That’s where the alarm bells should start ringing. We all should have access,” he said. “You should find that companies who don’t pay, they still have enough access.”

Mr Vincent highlighted NAB as an example. In a statement, The bank told Domain it doesn’t donate any money to political parties as a rule, and didn’t feel left out of the political process.

University of NSW senior lecturer Lindy Edwards said the idea of paying to talk to politicians was troubling and that donating to both parties wasn’t as politically neutral as the companies thought.

“Usually it’s seen as a worse thing than supporting a party,” Dr Edwards said. “Arguing you support an agenda is what you expect in a democracy.

“If they’re paying for both sides they’re seeking to have disproportionate influence over people who don’t get access.

“They don’t see it that way. They think, “our competitor has access, so we need it.”

She said it was hard to tell if one party was better than the other on climate change issues, but Labor did pledge to up emissions reductions targets in the 2019 election campaign and increase the uptake of electric vehicles.

“To be honest, it’s tricky. On so many issues, neither of the parties are particularly good,” said Dr Edwards. “Neither of the major parties are saying, ‘we’re getting rid of coal’, for example.”