Energy giant Santos’ quest to win the hearts and minds of NSW farming communities about coal seam gas has backfired after one of its TV ads has been exposed as a con, writes environment editor Sandi Keane.
NOTE: Santos appears to have now pulled the conjob ad as a resut of Sandi's exposé! See UPDATES at the end of this piece.
DON HUBBARD is a fourth generation farmer, and grows canola, sorghum, durum wheat, cotton and sunflowers. He has two properties at Spring Ridge, Cooininee and Tavetare, at the foot of Mt Coolanbilla. He’s lived on the property since he was 5 years old and knows it like the back of his hand.
So, when he sat down to relax during spring this year after a day’s canola harvesting, he was shocked to see his property – and that of his neighbours, Ben and Phoebe Clift – featured in a Santos coal seam gas (CSG) ad on the TV.
Don Hubbard’s property is 45 km from Gunnedah on the Liverpool Plains ― one of the most productive agricultural zones in Australia.
He identified Mt Coolanbilla in these two scenes (pictured at the piece and below) and the canola crop as the Clift’s.
The scene following Warwick Moppett, a Santos employee, walking through the Clift’s canola crop is a one of an old gate leading to a lake. The gate leads into another of Hubbard’s properties, Tavetare, and the lake is Lake Goran, which adjoins his farm.
The film crew had to be standing on Hubbard’s property to get this shot from inside the gate:
Warwick Moppett pulling up to the entrance to Don Hubbard’s property.
The next shot shows Warwick Moppett walking up to the gate to Tavetare and opening it with Lake Goran beyond.
The old gate leading to Tavetare, owned by Don Hubbard, on the shores of Lake Goran.
The truth is, Don Hubbard knew neither the man posing as the owner of his property nor the film crew — yet all of them had blatantly trespassed upon his property and those of his neighbours.
According to the ad, Warwick Moppett, is a “landholder and farming consultant”. He is there to give a message is one of hope for nervous CSG investors.
For instance, the voiceover says:
“Agriculture and coal seam gas do co-exist. Landholder and farming consultant Warwick Moppett is a prime example of that fact.”
Standing in a canola crop, Moppett speaks:
“I’m one of 250 farmers and landholders in Queensland and New South Wales working with Santos. We talked, we agreed, and my farm is better off for it.”
“We found water, he says, showing Lake Goran beyond Hubbard’s gate, and adds: “we fixed access tracks", "improved fences” and “of course, some money in my pocket” — the vision shows Moppett teasing and caressing some cotton bales.
Moppett enjoys the Kelly’s cotton bale.
The cotton bales Moppett rather proprietarily examines during the ad belong to another Gunnedah farming family ― Trish and Ben Kelly.
Like Don Hubbard, they had no idea their cotton crop was filmed for the ad.
Ben and Trish have no delusions about the damage done to farms by CSG mining.
They’ve visited Chinchilla in Queensland and describe the land as “cesspits” and the “ponds”(as CSG miners call them) as “500 acre toxic dams”.
"Cesspit" created by CSG in Queensland (Collinsvale).
Like Hubbard, the Kelly’s successful dryland farm operation also produces canola, wheat, barley, sorghum, sunflowers and chickpeas. Ben Kelly describes himself as a “custodian” of the land, which he’ll be passing on to his children.
“When the gas runs out though, what then? The food bowl will have been destroyed,” says Kelly.
Prominent anti-CSG campaigner and local farmer, Rosemary Nankivell, knows hokum when she sees it:
“Santos has been striving to get 'cutting edge' farmers signed up and supportive of the industry, especially the Gunnedah farmers. So far, they’ve just had a few farmers on poorer quality land. Santos is trying to tell everyone that CSG and farming can co-exist ― and that our campaign is all about ‘misinformation’. Well, this ad is the real misinformation."
With their farm under threat, Rosemary now campaigns for The Caroona Coal Action Group to help save their property and others from CSG mining. The Liverpool Plains’ famous black vertisol soil absorbs and holds moisture, allowing crops to be grown in droughts. The region attracts serious farmers like the Nankivell family who have grown cotton, canola, wheat, barley and sorghum in the Gunnedah area for generations.
“This is iconic country, like the Darling Downs but the climate is milder and the rainfall is better. How many areas are there in Australia where you can have a winter and summer crop?” she asks.
I decided to check out Warwick Moppett’s farm.
His farm, Everleigh, is not in the Gunnedah Basin, nor on the Liverpool Plains, but at Tooraweenah, near Gilgandra ― two hours’ drive away from where the ad was shot.
So, why did Santos not film their ad on Warwick Moppett’s property?
The answer is provided by some photos of Warwick Moppett’s property kindly taken for us last week by retired farmer and anti-CSG campaigner, Milton Judd. (Note: all photos were taken from public roads.)
Entrance to Moppett’s property Everleigh, O’Connors Road, Tooraweenah, NSW.
According to Judd:
“To the best of my knowledge, there’s never been any other crop except for fodder, not even wheat. It is very hilly with very little flat country and definitely not cotton or, for that matter, canola country.
"The Santos ads could lead to investors believing that farmers in the Gunnedah Basin are in favour of CSG mining, which we know they’re not.”
The Liverpool Plainsregion currently produces much of Australia’s wheat, corn, sunflower, canola, cotton and other grains, as well as cattle and sheep farming. So its farming community were understandably shocked when the O'Farrell government opened the floodgates to coal seam gas mining in September, by renewing twenty-two CSG exploration licences, including many of the most controversial titles in New South Wales.
Don Hubbard, who has travelled extensively around the world, describes the O’Farrell government’s decision as “plain crazy”.
“There is no way an operating broad-acre farm can co-exist with CSG wells, and there is no better dry-land farming anywhere in the world than here on the Liverpool Plains. If governments haven’t the wherewithal to protect that, I despair about the future."
Liberal MP Scot MacDonald — to be referred to ICAC for allegedly accepting gifts from gas company Santos, after praising coal seam gas drilling in NSW.
Santos and the NSW Government came under fire again last week with its gift of flights and accommodation to NSW Upper House Liberal MP, Scot Macdonald.
Greens’ mining spokesperson, Jeremy Buckingham, has referred the gift to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Just days after receiving the gift from Santos, Macdonald submitted his dissenting statement (p. 328) to the NSW Parliamentary Coal Seam Gas Inquiry Report, in which he concluded:
“It is difficult to reach any other conclusion than the coal seam gas industry should be developed as quickly as possible."
WA Premier Colin Barnett (Lib) has stated that:
"The unique environmental, viticultural and tourism values of the region cannot be compromised, and the Government will implement the most stringent planning framework possible to protect it from all forms of high impact mining.”
As a result, the conservative Western Australian Government has quarantined its iconic Margaret River food production region from mining. The Coalition governments in the eastern states, however, look set to continue to gamble their future on mining royalties.
The Federal Labor government has, meanwhile, recognized the important role of food and fibre for the Asian region.
Its white paper, Australia in the Asian Century, predicts a surge in food exports as an increasingly affluent Asia is expected to push demand 70 per cent higher by 2050 from 2007 levels.
In line with Australia’s position as one of the major food and fibre suppliers to the Asian market, a National Food Plan is being developed to foster “a sustainable, globally competitive, resilient food supply”. Public consultation for the Federal Government’s green paper was concluded on 30 September 2012.
Under the heading: ‘Maintaining Australia’s food security' are a couple of interesting objectives in relation to coal seam gas:
• Manage the potential impact of coal seam gas and large coal mining developments on water resources, including supporting an independent expert scientific committee*.
and
• Develop a national framework with state and territory governments on coal seam gas that will address key community concerns on water management, multiple land use, best practice and co-existence.
Community fears about food and water security is clearly impacting on Labor political policy in New South Wales. Labor has undergone a 360-degree turn on coal seam gas mining and is now calling for a moratorium.
The NSW Greens’ spokesperson on mining, Jeremy Buckingham MLC, claims the National Food Plan fails to adequately address the major threats to agriculture of mining and gas development.
On the weekend, at the Australian Greens National Conference, the Country Greens were formed and held their first meeting. The Greens say they plan to give country communities a real choice at all future state, territory and federal elections.
Buckingham says they want farms not fossil fuel:
“We want to ensure another massive fossil fuel industry doesn’t get its toe in the door. We see the rural communities being underpinned through agriculture and vertically integrated through processing and markets for hundreds of years to come. Our agricultural industry shouldn’t be destroyed by the “rape, ruin and run” industry.”
CORRESPONDENCE
In response to a request for an explanation from the company that produced the ad, KWP! Advertising, we publish below their comments and Sandi Keane’s response:
On 05/11/2012, at 6:14 PM, Andrew Fotheringham replied to Sandi Keane:
Dear Sandi,
Thank you for your email. Sorry, that I have not gotten back to you sooner but Friday afternoon was the first time we received your correspondence.
The ads we produced for Santos were filmed in a variety of locations in north-west New South Wales including private land, public land, areas leased by Santos, road verges and road easements. Approval was obtained where appropriate and clear guidelines were in place not to enter private land.
The ad featuring Warwick Moppett is one of a series of ads that depicts Santos employees going about their daily business. In his role as a farming consultant for Santos, Warwick visits farms and farmers in a wide range of locations across northwest NSW. The ad shows him driving between properties and stopping at the side of the road to talk to camera. At no time does the ad state or imply that the properties seen in the background are Warwick’s.
The location near Lake Goran was chosen because it features a range of landscapes and land uses in close proximity, and it is broadly representative of the areas in which Santos proposes to develop its Coal Seam gas business.
We film Warwick standing on the fringes of a canola crop and in front of a cotton field including amongst cotton bales on the side of the road.
Thanks,
Andrew
On 05/11/2012, at 8:11 PM, Sandi Keane wrote to Andrew Fotheringham:
Dear Andrew
Thank you for your response.
I'm afraid the guidelines you speak of were indeed breached.
Warwick Moppett is filmed clearly walking through a field of canola on the Clift's property, not, as you say from the road or the fringe of the crop. He is also seen parking a car and opening a gate onto Don Hubbard's property. That scene is filmed from the other side of the gate so the film crew had to be standing on Don Hubbard's property to take that shot.
You say that, "at no time does the ad state or imply that the properties seen in the background are Warwick's" but the implication is clear from the voiceover:
“Agriculture and coal seam gas do co-exist. Landholder and farming consultant Warwick Moppett is a prime example of that fact.”
In fact, Don Hubbard says: “There is no way an operating broadacre farm can co-exist with CSG wells".
It is true the Kelly's bales were on the side of the road as there is no fence there but as Trish Kelly says, they are their bales. Thus, when Warwick Moppett takes a sample of cotton out of one of them, he is technically touching private property, quite apart from the fact that he clearly gives the impression they are his bales with the synchronized voice-over: "money in my pocket".
With regards,
Sandi Keane
POSTSCRIPT
Last weekend, the Kelly’s, owners of the cotton bales, received an apologetic phone call from Mark Rogers of Santos.
* TheEnvironment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Act 2012was passed on 10 October 2012.
(This article first appeared in a different, abridged, version in New Matilda. You can follow Sandi Keane on Twitter @Jarrapin or her blog ‘Carbon Claptrap…. and other Bunkum’.)
UPDATES
SANTOS PULLS AD ... OR DO THEY?
After the publication of this piece in New Matilda yesterday, Santos' Group Manager of CSG policy and communications, Matt Doman, vainly tried last to defend the advertisement on Twitter and other platforms. It didn't work; he was crucified.
Santos have retreated from this position now.
Today, Dugald Saunders from Dubbo radio station ABC 2CR interviewed Warwick Moppett along with Sam Crafter, Santos' manager of community and government relations, where Crafter was reported to have said that, given community concern, Santos would be pulling the advertisement discussed in this piece.
This is contradicted by an ABC rural news piece out this afternoon (that, incidentally, uses the same original quotes used in this piece without any attribution) where it states in the last line:
'Santos says the ad has not been pulled, but is not on the energy company's current rotation of television advertisements.'
LATEST UPDATE: Santas DOES pull ad!
At 7.30pm 7 November, I received a call from Matt Doman, Group Manager CSG Policy and Communications at Santos Ltd advising that their ad would be pulled. In his email sent at 7.32 below, he says:
'There is one ad in the series where some landholders have expressed concerns about having their properties filmed. That ad is not currently airing, but acknowledging those concerns Santos has decided not to re-use it in its current form.'
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
