Far be it from this publication to criticise anyone contributing to a greener world. Indeed, Independent Australia has long advocated for climate action.
Nor would we condemn any billionaires wishing to part with some of their wealth for good instead of evil. After all, surely not all obscenely wealthy people are only obsessed with accumulating even more wealth and power?
However, when one such billionaire chooses to campaign to ‘see incentives for diesel use removed for the top 18 companies in mining’ and suggests that ‘that money be directed to where Aussies need it most’, we have to ask the question so many seem happy to overlook: Why?
Iron ore magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is on the record, his latest national advertising campaign dominating our television screens and airwaves, apparently wanting to help ‘reduce Australia’s reliance on … fossil fuels’.
According to the Fortescue Holdings website, the diesel tax refund should be capped at the “paltry” sum of just $50 million per company, because [IA emphasis]:
Australia needs economic security as well as clean energy.
But we can’t get there while incentivising our biggest industries to keep burning imported fossil fuels.
By capping this refund, we could redirect funds to help with cost of living or into clean and practical solutions like mine electrification and renewable energy.
In simple terms, this change would, strengthen the economy, help ordinary Australians and redirect investment into cleaner, locally produced energy.
Capping the diesel tax refund at $50 million:
- Leaves farmers, fishers, and small businesses untouched
- Frees up funds to help Australians with cost of living pressures
- Unlocks investment in clean, locally produced energy and sustainable jobs
- Ensures major miners contribute their fair share
- Helps reduce Australia’s reliance on imported fossil fuels.
We hear you thinking, if Mr Forrest is so keen to help Australians with cost of living pressures, surely it would make more sense for his company not to claim $305 million (approx) each year in the first place? It’s not as though taking this obscene amount of money is compulsory.
Or, you know, Twiggy could contribute his company’s “fair share” by using these rebates to pay for us all to “unlock clean locally produced energy” by installing solar power for everyone who doesn’t have it, for example?
Perhaps if Forrest hadn't, as Kristina Keneally wrote in 2017, '...demonstrated an aversion to paying tax':
'FMG officials told a Senate hearing in 2011 that the company had never paid company tax (but had paid $450m to $500m per year in mining royalties).
In 2013, Forrest and FMG challenged the mining tax in the high court. They lost.
In 2014-15, FMG generated $9.1bn in sales on a taxable income of $208m, and paid just $13.2m in tax.'
So many options for someone with Mr Forrest's means.
Maybe we would believe this sudden commitment to the environment if Andrew hadn’t actively and very publicly campaigned alongside one-time mate and fellow billionaire, Gina Rinehart, to “Axe the tax” in 2010, causing the demise of the carbon tax and the fall of the Rudd/Gillard governments. If he and Gina and all their one percenter mates hadn’t succeeded in doing away with the sensible and equitable carbon tax, we would arguably not be in a position where advocating for fossil fuel companies to “contribute their fair share” would even be necessary.
Possibly, if this billionaire with an estimated personal wealth of around $33 billion hadn’t opined that welfare spending was “out of control”, even though it wasn’t. If only Twiggy hadn’t then created a cashless "healthy" welfare card with Tony Abbott's blessing, known as the Indue card, to “fix” this imagined problem by controlling what the poor people could spend their money on, not allowing them to spend it on alcohol, cigarettes or gambling, but still allowing rich people – like himself – to spend on as much drinking and cavorting as their money could buy.
If only how Andy spent the tax rebates and assorted subsidies his companies received from taxpayer funds could likewise be controlled by taxpayers?
Perhaps if Andy hadn’t displaced traditional owners to forge ahead with his own mining interests.
Then there’s Forrest’s questionable “green” advocacy. Perhaps it would be more believable if he hadn’t said the 2020 bushfire crisis wasn't caused by climate change.
Or if, though he announced a $70 million donation to bushfire recovery, only $10 million went to the victims.
As Grant Turner wrote in IA:
When we look a little deeper into Forrest's philanthropic donation it's apparent that his gift comes with conditions. Ten million is for immediate relief of the victims of the bushfires.
Another $10 million will go to Twiggy's "army of helpers" — whatever that means.
And $50 million will go to his own Mindaroo Foundation. This is, apparently, to enable his own handpicked researchers to look into "fire mitigation".
A cynic might say that these handpicked researchers are unlikely to come up with real answers and that what recommendations they do come up with are likely to be of benefit to Twiggy.
It’s also possible that if only one of the above facts were true, we might not be quite so cynical. However, the sheer weight of all these facts in their entirety makes it very difficult to believe his latest move is anything but self-serving.
Fortescue is still one of Australia's top corporate polluters, even in 2025, though it has stated it will:
'...transition toward being an integrated green technology, energy and metals company...'
If Fortescue manages to achieve this in any real sense and if it also inspires others, then Independent Australia will be the first to applaud Andrew Forrest.
But the question remains. Why would Twiggy, a man with all he could wish for – who can probably also give all of us all we could wish for – and whose decidedly non-green or particularly philanthropic past points to a person happy with wealth never trickling down, suddenly wake up to the climate crisis and become a "green energy" advocate?
Beware billionaires bearing gifts.
The rich and powerful piss on us, and the media tell us it’s raining. That is the unfortunate truth about trickle-down economics, and never has it been more appropriate than right now, when the 'world’s top one per cent own more wealth than 95 per cent of humanity'.
This editorial was originally published as part of the Independent Australia weekly newsletter. Subscribe to IA to access all our work from as little as $1.15 per week and help power our journalism in 2026.
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