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đź“„ Submission 140 to the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy
How $108 Million in Foreign Interference Has Warped Australia’s Energy Debate
Australia’s energy debate has been shaped by foreign actors with no accountability to the Australian people.
Over the past decade, more than $108 million in foreign funding has flowed into Australian environmental and activist groups with a single aim: to destroy coal’s social license, distort the economics of energy, and steer public policy toward outcomes that serve overseas interests, not Australian households or industries.
In this landmark submission to the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, the Page Research Centre lays out the evidence of how international money and misinformation have combined to capture Australia’s energy debate.
Key Findings
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$108 million in foreign funding from sources including the Rockefeller, Oak, Ballmer, and Sequoia Climate foundations into Australian anti-coal campaigns.
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Over $170 million in annual domestic advocacy spending by activist organisations including the Sunrise Project, Greenpeace, the Environmental Defenders Office, and The Australia Institute, working in coordinated campaigns to delegitimise coal and oppose dispatchable generation.
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Misleading government and CSIRO modelling that hides transmission, firming and household subsidy costs while promoting the false claim that “renewables are the cheapest form of energy.”
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Media and political repetition that entrenched misinformation and shaped public opinion in the lead-up to the 2025 election.
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Case studies of disinformation, including false nuclear costings propagated by the Smart Energy Council and repeated by senior ministers during the campaign.
The submission calls for truth, transparency and technology-neutral policymaking, arguing that Australia’s prosperity and sovereignty depend on ending the capture of the energy debate by ideology and foreign influence.
