Coal miner Simon Turner was recovering from a broken back when the penny dropped. He was victim of a billion-dollar wage scam pulled off by BHP and its labour hire firms. Michael West reports.
Simon Turner recalls the accident clearly. It was December 2015, 11.20 in the morning. Location: BHP’s enormous Mount Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley.
“The mine was shut down for dust but I was in the coal crew and a digger-driver couldn’t see me and hit me with the bucket of the excavator. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital at Muswellbrook.”
He didn’t know it then, but the coal miner had broken his back. He didn’t know either that he’d been classified as an ‘office worker’.
“A BHP employee came out to see me in hospital and said we need you to come back to meet with the superintendent. I later learned I had a broken back but they told me the scanning machine didn’t work.”
The paperwork said I worked in an office and was paid 28k a year
There’s a law against coal miners being employed as casual workers. It’s the Black Coal Award. Nonetheless, BHP and its labour hire associates, with the knowledge of the union, the CFMEU’s insurance and superannuation associates, the mining lobby groups and the NSW state government, were all participants in the rort.
Simon Turner only found out he was “illegally employed by a labour hire company” when he was convalescing with a broken back and thumbing though his employment papers.
“So I went to meet with the superintendent. Get this, he wasn’t there at work, he had to come into the mine site. “Listen mate, we’ve had too many LTIs (lost time injury), he told me. “Don’t report it, and if you do report it you won’t have a job. Just come into work and make sure you get paid. You won’t have to do anything. Just sit here.”
Turner later found out his employment had been classified as an office worker. He and other coal miners started a class action but that fell apart and Turner has been negotiating with BHP and the Minerals Council for compensation and justice for underpaid coal workers since.
“[The contracts] were all done illegally. “I was living below the poverty line for over six years … my full pay under the Award should be $137k a year. I was being paid $400 a week!”.
“The drivers of the underpayment are the big mining companies
“The drivers of the underpayment are the big mining companies,” another miner told MWM. “They (BHP, Glencore, Peabody and others) write a contract so the supply of casual labour cannot be met by using the minimum standard which is set out in the industry award.”
Says Turner: “They (BHP) are complaining about not paying people what they are legally entitled to … at the end of the day they construct the contract with the labour hire company which makes it impossible for the statutory legal minimum to be paid”.
Underpayment of workers that is, by express design of the mine operators. In this case BHP.
CFMEU a good distraction for BHP
The scandal engulfing the CFMEU has been a convenient distraction for BHP and the other mine operators. While the media has revelled in the salacious detail and mostly focused on union corruption in isolation – that is, ignoring corporate involvement – BHP and its proxies have confronted the government over its Same Job Same Pay laws.
“Hysteria” is the way Resources Minister Madeleine King framed the reaction by the mining lobby and the Coalition. “Whether in opposition or government … they’re the first to go to the Murdoch press to do a story around what they don’t like about what a Labor government chooses to do and it wouldn’t matter what it is”..
Her remarks were pointed at BHP, the most strident of the industry critics, which claimed the new labour laws could cost 4500 jobs.
BHP and the unions had abandoned the black coal workers in the Hunter Valley.
Same Job Same Pay is Labor’s move to clean up the labour hire rort but it has not addressed the historical injustice which Turner estimates at $2.5B in underpayments since 2010.
The issue is politically tricky because the Liberals will always back the corporations over the unions and, says Turner, Labor has been hamstrung by the involvement of the unions, so key to its funding base.
Roberts: “miners abandoned”
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts though has been a lone voice on this issue and raised it in the Senate this week, saying BHP and the unions had “abandoned the black coal workers in the Hunter Valley”.
Roberts has also fingered the labour hire operators and the Fair Work Commission – as well as the unions and BHP, saying the FWC had not followed its own Act, specifically by its failure to comply with s134 of Fair Work Act which says FWC must ensure that the Awards remain the minimum standard.
The unions, says Simon Turner, have endorsed the Enterprise Agreements struck between the workers and the labour hire companies which have allowed BHP to operate with cheap casual labour.
The Mining and Energy Union – the MEU of the CFMEU – which has split from the Construction and Forestry division, denies it endorses the underpayments; rather that these are deals struck separately over which the union has no control.
“The Black Coal Award does not provide for casual employment,” the MEU told MWM. “However Enterprise Agreements in the coal industry do provide for casual employment and there is nothing that the MEU can do about that if workers vote them up and the Fair Work Commission approves them.
“The ‘protected rate of pay’ … is a result of Same Job Same Pay laws fought for by our Union to close the legal loophole used by big mining companies to drive down wages. All applications for ‘Same Job Same Pay’ to lift rates for labour hire workers in our industry have been made by the MEU.”
Coal to Newcastle
Simon Turner had two surgeries on his back before Christmas in 2015. “I then find out that BHP had sacked me two days after I was injured. It’s in writing that I was terminated, and that the insurer paid me directly. I got the Separation Certificate. But guess what – they put on there‘resignation’.
“And (in the box at 3) to say a workers compensation claim been made, or would be made in the future, they ticked no.”
He found that workers comp provided for 78 weeks pay and that the legislated monopoly insurer was Coal Mines Insurance, owned by 50-50 by the NSW Minerals council and the CFMEU.
“After that I didn’t get paid, Chandler Macleod said the matter was with the insurer. But I then found out it was with CGU, which is the NSW statutory scheme. The scheme for average weekly earners is PIAWE (Pre Injury Average Weekly Earnings) but this scheme doesn’t apply to coal miners.
“After a fight with them I got to view the Certificate of Currency for the policy (insurance policy with CGU) which insured me – it now involved the NSW government. On that policy, they had me down as an office worker, and I only earned 28k a year.
“I started making complaints. It went to the NSW Government. They covered it all up and paid me a PIAWE. They dropped it to $400 a week on workers comp. NSW Workcover.
“CGU could not insure me. Chandler Macleod couldn’t pay me – I was told *because* they sacked me and didn’t tell me. I was being paid directly from the insurer. Not the monopoly insurer but by Chandler Macleod via enterprise agreement which was paying everybody illegally. It didn’t just happen to me. It happened to plenty of people.”
When the pay rate is illegal so is everything which derives from it
We now know, says Turner, that the mine owner BHP (and this applies to the other multinational mine operators Peabody and Glencore and Anglo) and the labour hire companies had a contract which was less than the award so it made it impossible for the labour hire company to pay the award.
“When the pay rate is illegal so is everything which derives from it: tax, super weekly entitlements, workers comp.
Says another former coal miner: “That’s tens of thousands of illegally employed mine workers currently and historically employed under enterprise agreements approved by the Fair Work Commission that have erroneously allowed the removal of their minimum protection. They were paid 40% of the Award”.
The MEU does not hold out hope for compensation for BHP’s salary arbitrage: “We don’t believe there is currently a legal avenue for casual coal miners to receive entitlements backpay (as it was overturned by the previous Parliament by the Morrison Government and One Nation) however we are optimistic about Same Job Same Pay laws significantly improving pay rates for labour hire workers going forward”.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Dynamic pricing has played its way into the Australian live music scene, courtesy of Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster. But who benefits from the higher prices, musician Josh Barnett asks.
A well-known feature of pricing for air travel and hotel bookings, the practice of ‘yield’ driven pricing is now being applied to the sale of concert tickets. Apparently, bleeding fans dry just once isn’t enough. With Green Day’s 2025 Australian tour as the latest contender, concertgoers are now facing seat prices as high as $500, all thanks to Ticketmaster’s so-called “In Demand” pricing.
In Demand pricing means simply that ticket prices fluctuate in real time based on demand. It’s a bit like watching the stock market while you’re desperately trying to nab a seat for a show, except instead of stocks, it’s your hard-earned dollars evaporating before your eyes.
Do the musicians make more money?
As a musician, I completely understand the need for bands to maximise their income. Since the introduction of streaming and the loss of sale of physical CDs, a majority of artists’ income has to either come from digital streaming or from performing live.
Does this dynamic pricing help the band? The short answer is yes, but not as much as you might think.
Dynamic pricing has been marketed as a way for artists to earn more money by capturing revenue that would otherwise go to scalpers (for sold-out shows). Ticketmaster and Live Nation often claim that dynamic pricing allows artists to “price tickets closer to their true market value,” ensuring the revenue ends up in the hands of musicians instead of in the secondary market. Except in Australia, while not illegal, ticket reselling is highly regulated.
Most states do not allow for the resale of tickets for more than 10% of their original cost, but that regulation does not appear to apply to dynamic ticket pricing, which can often lead to much higher pricing>
Artists do get a bigger cut of that market-driven price, but artists are not in control of the pricing mechanisms. The final price is often dictated by Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s algorithms, which respond to demand in real time to maximise their profits.
So, while bands like Green Day may benefit from higher revenue thanks to dynamic pricing, it’s really Live Nation that’s the biggest winner. In this vertically integrated market, the artist is still at the mercy of corporate giants, even when dynamic pricing claims to “support” them.
The idea that dynamic pricing is designed solely to benefit the musicians is an oversimplification at best and, at worst, another marketing spin from the corporate machine.
Green Day’s 2025 “Saviors” tour, ironically named given the gouging their fans are experiencing, rolled out tickets under this dynamic pricing scheme. General admission is a cool $200—if you’re lucky. But if you want a seat where you can actually see the band, be ready to fork over as much as $500. Fans who once idolised Green Day’s rebellious, anti-corporate roots now find themselves paying exorbitant sums to support a band that once played in dingy basements for next to nothing.
Ticketmaster claims this gouging isn’t its fault, pointing the finger at the artists and their teams for setting prices. “It’s for the fans’ own good,” they say—after all, who wouldn’t want to pay ‘market value’ rather than falling prey to those evil scalpers?
The ticketing duopoly
Let’s not kid ourselves—this isn’t some innocent pricing model responding to fair market demand. This is market manipulation in broad daylight. The concert ticketing business is controlled by a tiny handful of players, and Live Nation is the undisputed king. They own Ticketmaster, a massive share of the venues, and even manage many of the artists. They’ve essentially created a vertical monopoly over the entire live music supply chain, with fans paying the price.
And it’s not just Green Day—Oasis fans in the UK saw prices for their reunion tour spike from £135 to a mind-boggling £355 while they were still in the queue.
Australia’s live music market is following a similar pattern of consolidation. And with local authorities like the ACCC slow to intervene—unlike their counterparts in Europe and the US—Live Nation and Ticketmaster are free to exploit Australian fans with little oversight.
Bringing international acts to Australia is expensive due to a combination of factors, including high transportation and logistics costs for flying in artists, crews, and equipment.
Additionally, there are limited major cities to tour, so artists must cover vast distances between shows, driving up travel and accommodation expenses even further. Venues and production costs are often higher compared to other parts of the world, and with fewer opportunities to perform, acts need to charge more to cover their overheads and still make the tour profitable.
This all adds up to pricier tickets for Aussie fans.
Where’s the ACCC?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been characteristically quiet on this one. Sure, they’ve acknowledged dynamic pricing is legal—as long as it doesn’t mislead consumers. But what constitutes “misleading”? Apparently, it’s not enough that prices surge while customers are trapped in a virtual waiting room, helplessly watching their dream tickets inch further out of financial reach.
The ACCC’s stance doesn’t seem to account for the fact that in markets like live music, supply and demand aren’t as flexible as they are in other industries. Hotel rooms and flights have alternatives. But for a Green Day or an Oasis concert? You’ve got one shot, and if you miss it, good luck. This isn’t about giving fans “fair access” to tickets—it’s about seeing how much ‘blood’ can be squeezed from the proverbial stone before people snap.
Culture at a Price
Beyond the dollars and cents, there’s a deeper issue at play here. Concerts are supposed to be shared cultural experiences, places where communities come together. They’re supposed to be accessible. But with dynamic pricing, increasing costs, online fees and so many more extra costs, only those who can afford the steep costs are left to be able to enjoy their favourite bands. Everyone else? Shut out.
The current system prioritises profit margins over people, turning what should be an affordable cultural event into a luxury experience. The cost of live music is becoming yet another marker of inequality. If we’re not careful, these shared experiences, these moments that shape our cultural identity, will be reduced to nothing more than an exclusive club for the well-heeled.
Where to from here?
So, what’s the solution? Do we throw our hands up and accept dynamic pricing as the new normal?
Not quite. If Live Nation’s monopoly is too big to be challenged head-on, then maybe it’s time for the government to step in. Regulation doesn’t have to be a dirty word. In the US, the Justice Department is taking Live Nation to court over its abusive market power. In the UK, regulators are investigating dynamic pricing practices.
Here, we’re still waiting.
For now, we’re stuck with a broken system where fans pay through the nose for a glimpse of their favourite artists. And as long as companies like Live Nation dominate every aspect of the live music market, don’t expect the situation to change anytime soon.
In the meantime, maybe we should all start saving for Dua Lipa’s 2025 tour tickets—because if Green Day’s prices are anything to go by, it’s going to be another expensive ride.
The South Australian government wants at least 10 innovative companies from interstate or overseas to set up shop in the state this year under a new $1 million a year Investment Accelerator Program. Officially launched on Tuesday, the program will seek to create high-skilled and well-paid jobs in priority sectors like health and medical, critical…
A South African company is reported to be the most probable bidder for shares in New Caledonia’s Prony Resources.
As part of an already advanced takeover of the ailing southern plant of Prony Resources, the most probable bidder is reported to be South African group Sibaneye-Stillwater, local new media report.
Just like the other two major mining plants and smelters in New Caledonia, Prony Resources is facing acute hardships due to the emergence of Indonesia as a major player on the world market, compounded with New Caledonia’s violent unrest that broke out in May.
The Johannesburg-based entity is a significant player on the minerals world market (including nickel, platinum and palladium) and owns, amongst other assets, a hydro-metallurgic processing plant in Sandouville (near Le Havre, western France) with a production capacity of 12,000 tonnes per year of high-grade nickel which it bought in February 2022 from French mining giant Eramet for 85 million euros (NZ$153 million).
Sibanye-Stillwater appears to follow a well-planned scheme, aiming at building an integrated project that would control all of the nickel extraction and production stages.
The ultimate goal would be, for the South African player, to become a leader on the production market for innovative electric vehicles batteries, especially on the European market.
Southern Province President Sonia Backès had already hinted last week that one buyer had now been found and that one bidder had successfully reached advanced stages in the due diligence process.
If the deal eventuated, the new entity would take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent) and another block of shares held by the Southern Province to reach a total of 74 percent participation in Prony Resources stock, as part of a major restructuration of the company’s capital.
Prony Resources, in full operation mode, employs about 1300 staff.
Another 1700 are employed indirectly through sub-contractors.
It has paused its production to retain only up to 300 staff, in safety and maintenance mode, partly due to New Caledonia’s current unrest.
New Caledonia’s Koniambo (KNS) mining site aerial view. Image: KNS
The plant’s furnaces were placed in “cold care and maintenance” mode at the end of August, six months after major shareholder Anglo-Swiss Glencore announced it wanted to withdraw and sell the 49 percent shares it has in the project.
This caused close to 1200 job losses and further 600 among sub-contractors.
Other bidders still interested
KNS claimed at least three foreign investors were still interested at this stage, but none of these have so far materialised.
Talks were however reported to continue behind the scenes, with interested parties even ready to travel and visit on-site, KNS Vice-President and spokesman Alexandre Rousseau told Reuters news agency earlier this month.
‘Okelani Group One’ But a so-called “Okelani Group One” (OGO), made up of three local partners, said their offer could revive the project with a different business model.
They say they have made an offer to KNS’s majority shareholder SMSP (Société Minière du Sud Pacifique, New Caledonia’s Northern province financial arm).
OGO president Florent Tavernier told public broadcaster NC la 1ère much depended on what Glencore intended to do with the staggering debt of some US$13.7 billion which KNS had accumulated over the past 10 years.
Another OGO partner, Gilles Hernandez, explained: “We would be targeting a niche market of very high quality nickel used in aeronautics and edge-cutting technologies, especially in Europe, where nickel is now classified as ‘strategic metal’.”
Although KNS was designed to produce 60,000 tonnes of nickel a year, that target was never reached.
OGO said it would only aim for 15,000 tonnes per year and would only re-employ 400 of the 1200 laid-off staff.
New Caledonia’s third nickel plant, owned by historic Société Le Nickel (SLN, a subsidiary of French mining giant Eramet), which is also facing major hardships for the same reasons, is said to currently operate at minimal capacity.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In every presidential election, office seekers elbow each other to position themselves as favoring tax breaks for the electorate. Kamala Harris raced in quickly with proposals for a tax break for the middle class and a tax deduction of up to $50,000 for new small businesses ─ two debt producing polices. To her credit, the vice president intends to roll back a Trump administration law by raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, a needed revenue-raising policy. The first two tax proposals sound good but aren’t good. Both candidates favor Child tax credits, a worthy policy for a huge class of voters and another example of pandering to the taxpayers.
The Middle Class Tax Cut
No matter how it is sliced, diced, or spiced, this middle class tax cut benefits nobody, harms the nation, and questions Harris’ credibility. The presidential aspirant said in her acceptance speech that she will be a president for all peoples in the nation. Singling out a tax cut for the more fortunate does not match her words. Unexplained is why this special class needs a tax cut.
Tax cuts are usual when demand is low, such as in a recession. The present economy is healthy with plenty, and I do mean plenty, of new Teslas in my middle class neighborhood. Elevated consumer demand is subsiding, noted by the decrease in consumer-inflated prices and increase in stock and housing market asset prices. Money is flowing into assets and a middle class tax cut will accelerate the trend.
Taxes transfer money between the government and the public. Neither method adds or subtracts to the money supply nor allows more or less available spending to the economy ─ the purchasing power stays the same, which means the purchasing of goods and services remain the same, and the GDP remains the same Lowering taxes mainly assists the already employed, and that is not the major priority. Who pays taxes ─ the employed. Who receives tax breaks ─ those who pay taxes. Lowering taxes redistributes federal assistance from needy persons to the employed. Which is preferable, redistributing income so the employed have more to spend or redistributing the income so the underemployed have something to spend?
Stimulating the economy by tax breaks is a psychological phenomenon. The talk, exaggerations, promises, and general optimism of tax breaks fashion a more optimistic public, which supposedly stimulates spending, investment, and courage to carry more debt. Creeping in to the debate is another assumption ─ those who have excess funds will invest and stimulate growth. Not considered is they might invest in speculative ventures that only churn money or might purchase imports, which decreases purchasing power of domestic production.
GDP has steadily grown, with a few bumps, in the last 80 years, and no relation to lowering of taxes has been shown. A government report: Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945, Thomas L. Hungerford Specialist in Public Finance, September 14, 2012 at concludes:
The top income tax rates have changed considerably since the end of World War II. Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The average tax rate faced by the top 0.01% of taxpayers was above 40% until the mid-1980s; today it is below 25%. Tax rates affecting taxpayers at the top of the income distribution are currently at their lowest levels since the end of the second World War. The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced ─ lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.
Because taxable incomes do not include inflation and these have increased greatly during the last decades, it is difficult to compare tax rates in 2024 with earlier tax rates. Peering through data, they seem just as low as they were in 2014, when the government report was published, or at a near historic post-World War II low. Why go lower?
Tax Deduction of up to $50,000 for New Small Businesses
The principal hindrance to starting a small business is the high interest rate. Tax deductions will not help small businesses that have no access to funds and no profits to tax. The proposal affects a minor portion of the small business community and is subsidized by a major portion of the economy ─ those who can also use tax breaks.
This tax benefit is a policy seeking a problem. Newly created small businesses have exploded in the post-pandemic period. An April, 2024 Treasury Department report relates,
Small businesses created over 70 percent of net new jobs since 2019. In the previous business cycle, small businesses created 64 percent of net new jobs.
Small business optimism is rebounding as inflation falls. Multiple measures of business optimism show substantial increases in recent months. More than 70 percent of small business leaders expect revenues to grow over the next year, the most since the pandemic.
Entrepreneurship continues to surge: the United States is averaging 430,000 new business applications per month in 2024, 50 percent more than in 2019. The subset of applications for businesses most likely to hire employees has also risen to 140,000 per month, 30 percent more than in 2019. Over 19 million businesses have been formed since Biden’s inauguration, and these are not just sole proprietorships or fly-by-night operations. The subset of applications for businesses most likely to hire employees has increased 30 percent from 2019.
The Main Street Alliance(MSA) establishes priorities for small businesses. Its 2025 agenda does not include a suggestion for a tax deduction. The Alliance advocates for “stronger antitrust enforcement, fair tax policies, and expanded access to capital. This includes efforts to revise the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, support the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and fight against cuts to critical small business funding from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and other agencies.”
MSA “plans on supporting the continued implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, paid family and medical leave, investments in child care, and enhanced subsidies for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.”
Child Tax Credit
Kamala Harris’ economic plans include a $6,000 tax credit for parents of newborns and a continuation of the pandemic-era Child Tax Credit (CTC). The latter expanded the Child Tax Credits and boosted the benefit to $3,600 for children under six years old and to $3,000 for children from 7 to 17 years of age.
Seems beneficial to subsidize those in need, which are usually growing families. In addition, it is good economics — places funds in hands of those who will spend them for essentials and move them through the economy. The question that Harris has not answered is, “To what level of income will the credits apply?” My recommendation is that credits should also be based on assets and slide off gradually from $60,000 income to $100,000 income. Their effects on inflation need study.
Corporate Tax Rate
Before Trump lowered the maximum corporate tax rate to a flat 21 percent, the 35 percent rate for income greater than $18.3 million, had been relatively constant for 32 years, and economic gyrations had not shown to be due to that rate.
The effective corporate tax rate graph tells another story — corporations have taken advantage of tax breaks and loopholes to reduce their taxes.
The problem is not high corporate tax; the problem is the ability of corporations to avoid paying taxes. If tax breaks and loopholes unique to U.S. corporations, such as accelerated depreciation, using excess tax benefits from stock options to reduce federal and state taxes, and industry specific tax breaks were reduced or eliminated, then the tax rate could also be reduced; the government charges with one legislation and discharges with another legislation. Corporations are responsible for finding loopholes to avoid taxes, and the government is responsible for providing the loopholes.
The posed advantages of a lower corporate tax rate — increased funds for investment translating into increased production, which increases employment and Gross Domestic Product might be true if corporations used the greater part of their profit for increased investment. However, corporations have used the excessive profit for executive bonuses, for stock buybacks, for corporate takeovers, and for augmenting retained earnings. With corporate profits at all-time highs, “S&P 500 Q1 2024 buybacks were $236.8 billion, up 8.1% from Q4 2023’s $219.1 billion and up 9.9% from Q1 2023’s $215.5 billion.”
Left out of the corporate books is responsibility to support infrastructure – transportation, communication, utilities – government research, government loans, credit guarantees, bailouts, assistance to education, job training, subsidies, and other programs that benefit corporations. Shouldn’t corporations repay a fair share of the financial assistance that guarantees their prosperity?
The oft-quoted assertion that high tax rates have been the primary driver for corporations to move facilities to nations that have low tax rates is not proven. Manufacturing close to market and utilization of low labor rates have been the more prominent drivers. Commentators spuriously define the words tax havens, tax deferred, and tax inversions to confuse the public, and promote the mistaken belief that U.S. corporations can change their domicile and easily escape major payments of the corporation’s federal taxes on income earned outside the United States.
Corporations, whose sales contain much intellectual property (Microsoft), are able to shift certain profits on sales, but this cannot easily occur for profits earned from trade or business of defined products manufactured outside the United States. If repatriated, these profits are eventually subjected to U.S. taxes.
The key proposition, which is overlooked, is that government spends all of corporate taxes and all the money circulates in the economy, some invested, some increasing production, some increasing employment, and all adding to or maintaining GDP. Why is this proposition “the key proposition?”
Economics becomes simplified when it is realized that all money is debt. The money supply can only be increased by either banks’ lending money from Reserves and essentially creating money, or by the Federal Reserve engaging in Open Market Operations ─ purchasing government debt that is financed by the Treasury Department. Treasury prints money that appear as IOUs at the Federal Reserve. If money remains dormant as excessive retained earnings or circulates speculatively as stock buybacks, the money, which is debt is not wisely used; it is comparable to borrowing money at 6 percent and then, rather than purchasing a product, investing it at 3 percent. All money in the economy is debt and all the debt is paying interest and being constantly retired and renewed.
This last tidbit is, admittedly, controversial and needs more discussion. It is the essential of the capitalist system, which grows by reinvesting profits ─ capital generating capital ─ and where all the money supply, including profits, that is needed to generate capital is equal to the debt in the system. Positive trade balances play a role, but generally, capitalism only moves forward by increasing debt.
Trump Tariffs
One mystery that has clouded the Biden administration is negligence in canceling the Trump administration’s tariffs on goods from China. During their debate, Trump questioned Harris on why, “if the Dems do not support the tariffs, has the Biden administration kept them?” Harris did not supply an answer.
Tariffs are used to either increase government revenue ─ the principal method before the income taxation system ─ or to protect domestic industries.
Former President Trump proudly declared that his tariffs had harmed the Chinese government. Is the function of a U.S. president to harm another government? He also claimed that foreign companies are paying for tariffs. “Multiple studies suggest this is not the case: the cost of tariffs have been borne almost entirely by American households and American firms, not foreign exporters.”
Protection is difficult to gauge; tariffs may have helped some producers and harmed companies who use the imported goods and now have to pay higher prices for the commodity. The export country, in this case, China, can retaliate and raise taxes on imports from the U.S. and harm American industries.
Have the tariffs protected the steel industry, the principal industry in the tariffs? The answer came in December 2023, when Nippon Steel announced a $14.9 billion takeover deal of U.S. Steel.
Conclusion
In conventional economic theory, the government formulates a budget and taxes the public to pay for the budget. If the tax revenues do not reach the expenditures, then either the government cuts the budget ─ done during Bill Clinton administration ─ or issues debt. What is never done is to have taxes planned to follow budget considerations. The promises by presidential contenders of cutting taxes are promises that have no rational; future budgets will be forced to be planned about tax revenue rather than having tax revenue agree with budget plans, a bad way to run a country.
Whistleblower Roxanne Mysko reported systematic safety violations at the trucking company where she worked – amid a rise in deaths involving large trucks across Australia – only to have her life turned upside down. Andrew Gardiner reports.
Trucking industry whistleblower Roxanne Mysko walked free from South Australia’s Supreme Court earlier this month, after surrendering to sheriffs at the Adelaide court house and fully expecting to be carted off to prison. To say it was a load off her mind would be an understatement for Roxanne, who faced a warrant for her arrest.
“I’d been told to expect some jail time when I turned up to court,” Roxanne told MWM . “But it seems the Chief Justice, Chris Kourakis, saw there was a lot more to the situation than me breaching a court order (Contempt of Court).”
“Now, to some extent, I can get on with my life.”
It appears from documents independently sighted by MWM that there was, to borrow Roxanne’s phrase, a lot “more to the situation” at Port Adelaide-based Express Cargo Services (ECS) which terminated her in 2020 after she raised serious breaches of Chain of Responsibility (CoR) and safety protocols. It comes amid a rise in deaths involving large trucks (as a proportion of all road fatalities) which many involved in the industry say should by now have made trucking safety a major issue for Australians.
Documents and statements regarding ECS and other trucking companies, independently verified by MWM, appear to confirm:
Fatigue among company drivers and subcontractors, who are alleged to have worked up to 26 days straight (the relevant law states drivers must have a 24-hour break every seventh day);
No safety audits of 70 subcontractors from 2007 to 2020, many in violation of CoR requirements which began in 2014;
No licence checks on 70 subcontractors;
No vehicle maintenance audits over an extended period;
Speeding by trucks supposedly limited to 90 km/h;
No documentation for all CoR safety procedures for any truck or freight movement anywhere in Australia.
If proven, such breaches of safety law can lead to millions of dollars in fines.
In earlier interviews with MWM, Roxanne said the “culture of corner cutting” in the trucking industry “should be a “national scandal.” Instead, those raising the alarm remain a small, sometimes-persecuted minority often largely ignored by regulators like the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).
Previously, Roxanne told MWM her post-dismissal whistle-blowing led to the bullying of her and her family, a police raid and a series of court actions that almost saw her jailed and may yet see her bankrupt. “I owe ECS $350,000 in legal fees awarded against me in an earlier court case, and I frankly don’t have that kind of money,” she told MWM in June.
Among other things, the 2023 court order against Roxanne gagged her from contact with “ineligible recipients” not covered by whistleblower protections, which she’d previously emailed as part of her attempt to bring serious safety breaches to the attention of regulators and partner companies.
MWM is not suggesting ECS has acted unethically or in violation of workplace or transport safety laws, and unless stated, has established the alleged facts around ECS’ safety record, opinions on the extent of whistleblower protections and subsequent conduct by the company independently of Ms Mysko.
Friends of Roxanne say she’s now turned her attention to possible wrongful-dismissal action against ECS, which terminated her after just two weeks, during which she had raised various internal alarms about driver safety and indicated her intention to contact regulators, as required of her under the law. “They sacked me without providing a reason, and did it while I was away from the office driving for the company near Hay in NSW,” she’d previously told MWM.
A woman of limited means, Roxanne has been seeking pro bono representation in the matter.
In recent weeks, truckies and their union have been buoyed by the addition of a road transport division to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) which is expected to help set tougher safety standards and to boost enforcement often lacking in the past. “With a new system to tackle the root causes of chronic safety issues in the industry, we hope to see (NHVR) close the loop on enforceable standards and make roads safer,” Transport Workers Union National Secretary, Michael Kaine, told MWM.
Roxanne agrees, describing the new division as a “game changer for drivers” and all the other smaller operators. “Rest assured I’ll be getting in touch with the FWC in the months ahead,” Roxanne said with a grin.
When John Holbrook first started working as a pipefitter in the early 1990s, jobs were easy to come by in his corner of northeastern Kentucky.
A giant iron and steel mill routinely needed maintenance and repair work, as did the coal “coking” ovens next to it. There was also a hulking coal-fired power plant and a bustling petroleum refinery nearby. Fossil fuels extracted from beneath the region’s rugged Appalachian terrain supplied these industrial sites, which sprung up during the 19th and 20th centuries along the yawning Ohio River and its tributary, Big Sandy.
“Work was so plentiful,” Holbrook recalled on a scorching August morning in Ashland, a quiet riverfront city of some 21,000 people.
Ashland retains its motto as the place “Where Coal Meets Iron,” and railcars still rumble by. But after years of downsizing production, the steel mill’s owner demolished the complex in 2022. A decade ago, the coal plant switched to burning natural gas to generate electricity, which requires less hands-on maintenance. Meanwhile, thousands of jobs vanished from surrounding coalfields as mining became more mechanized, market forces shifted, and clean air policies took hold.
Many families have since moved away. The tradespeople who’ve stayed often drive for hours to work on the new construction projects sprouting up in other places, like the massive factories for making and recycling electric-car batteries in western Kentucky and the electricity-powered steel furnace in neighboring West Virginia. If America is undergoing a manufacturing boom, it hasn’t yet reached this hard-hit stretch of the Bluegrass State.
But that could soon change.
In March, Century Aluminum, the nation’s biggest producer of primary, or virgin, aluminum, announced that it plans to build an enormous plant in the United States — the nation’s first new smelter in 45 years. Jesse Gary, the company’s president and CEO, has pointed to northeastern Kentucky as the project’s preferred location, though he said there were still a “myriad of steps” before the company reaches a final decision.
The Chicago-based manufacturer is slated to receive up to $500 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the facility, which could emit 75 percent less carbon dioxide than traditional smelters, thanks to its use of carbon-free energy and energy-efficient designs. The award is part of a $6.3 billion federal program — funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — that aims to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-industry sectors.
The Ohio River seen from Ashland, Kentucky, right. John Holbrook at his office in Ashland.
Aluminum demand is set to soar globally by up to 80 percent by 2050 as the world produces more solar panels and other clean energy technologies. The makers of the essential material are now under mounting pressure from policymakers and consumers to clean up their operations. In North America alone, aluminum producers will need to cut carbon emissions by 92 percent from 2021 levels to meet net-zero climate goals.
Century already owns two aging smelters in western Kentucky. The new “green smelter” is expected to create over 5,500 construction jobs and more than 1,000 full-time union jobs. If built in eastern Kentucky, the $5 billion project would mark the region’s largest investment on record.
“We just need a crumb or two, just a little giant smelter,” Holbrook said with a laugh when we met at his office near Ashland’s historic main street. A short walk away, stones used in the city’s original iron-making furnaces stand as monuments overlooking the Ohio River.
Today, Holbrook heads the Tri-State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents unions in a cluster of adjoining counties in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. He’s part of a broad coalition of labor organizers, local officials, environmentalists, and clean energy advocates who are urging Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, to work with Century to secure the smelter and hammer out a long-term deal to provide clean energy for it.
“It’d be a godsend for that area,” said Chad Mills, a pipefitter and the director of the Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council. The region “needs it more than you can imagine.”
The impact of Century’s new smelter would ripple far beyond this rural stretch of verdant peaks and meandering creeks.
The planned facility is set to nearly double the amount of primary aluminum that the United States produces — helping to revitalize a domestic industry that has been steadily shrinking for decades owing to spiking power prices and increased competition from China. In 2000, U.S. companies operated 23 aluminum smelters. Today, only four plants are operating, while another two have been indefinitely curtailed. That includes Century’s 55-year-old plant in Hawesville, Kentucky, which has been idle since June 2022.
The decline in U.S. production has complicated the country’s efforts to both make and procure lower-carbon aluminum for its supply chains, experts say.
Globally, the aluminum sector contributes around 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions every year. Nearly 70 percent of those emissions come from generating high volumes of electricity — often derived from fossil fuels — to power smelters almost around the clock.
As U.S. primary production dwindles, the country is importing more aluminum made in overseas smelters that are powered by dirtier, less efficient electrical grids. Ironically, an increasing share of that aluminum is being used to make solar panels, electric cars, heat pumps, power cables, and many other clean energy components. The metal is lightweight and inexpensive, and it’s a key ingredient in global efforts to electrify and decarbonize the wider economy.
But aluminum is also mind-bogglingly ubiquitous outside the energy sector. The versatile material is found in everything from pots and pans, deodorant, and smartphones to car doors, bridges, and skyscrapers. It’s the second-most-used metal in the world after steel.
Last year, the U.S. produced around 750,000 metric tons of primary aluminum while importing 4.8 million metric tons of it, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Meanwhile, the country produced 3.3 million metric tons of “secondary” aluminum in 2023. Boosting recycling rates is seen as a necessary step for addressing aluminum’s emissions problem, because the recycling process requires about 95 percent less energy than making aluminum from scratch. But even secondary producers need primary aluminum to “sweeten” their batches and achieve the right strength and durability, said Annie Sartor, the aluminum campaign director for Industrious Labs, an advocacy organization.
“Primary aluminum is essential, and we have a primary industry that’s been in decline, is very polluting, and is very high-emitting,” Sartor said. Century’s proposed new smelter “could be a turning point for this industry,” she added. “We all would like to see it get built and thrive.”
An employee walks by Century Aluminum’s smelter in Hawesville, Kentucky, in a 2017 photo. The smelter has been idle since 2022.
Luke Sharrett for The Washington Post via Getty Images
A new green smelter wouldn’t just boost supplies of primary aluminum for making clean energy technologies. The facility, with its voracious electricity appetite, is also expected to accelerate the region’s buildout of clean energy capacity, which has lagged behind that of many other states.
Century expects its planned smelter to produce about 600,000 metric tons of aluminum a year. That means it could need at least a gigawatt’s worth of power to operate annually at full tilt, equal to the yearly demand of roughly 750,000 U.S. homes. By way of comparison, Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, is home to some 625,000 people.
But Kentucky has very little carbon-free capacity available today.
About 0.2 percent of the state’s electricity generation came from solar in 2022, while 6 percent was supplied by hydroelectric dams, mainly in the western part of the state. Coal and gas plants produced most of the rest. Still, after decades of clinging tightly to its coal-rich history, Kentucky is seeing a raft of new utility-scale solar installations under development, including atop former coal mines.
And manufacturers in Kentucky can access the renewable energy being generated in neighboring states as well as regional grid networks like PJM. Swaths of eastern Kentucky are covered by a robust array of high-voltage, long-distance transmission lines operated by Kentucky Power, a subsidiary of the utility giant American Electric Power.
Lane Boldman, executive director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee, said that investing in clean energy and upgrading grid infrastructure would offer a chance to employ more of Kentucky’s skilled workers.
“It’s exciting, because it actually modernizes our industry and leverages a local workforce that has a great expertise with energy already,” she said when we met in Lexington, near the rolling green hills and long white fences of the area’s horse farms. “There are ways you can create economic development that are not so extractive, that just leave the community bare.”
Lane Boldman says she became an environmental advocate years ago after seeing how coal strip mining was harming Appalachian communities.
Maria Gallucci/Canary Media
Northeastern Kentucky isn’t the only location that Century is considering for the smelter. The company is also evaluating sites in the Ohio and Mississippi river basins. The final decision will depend on where there’s a steady supply of affordable power, a Century executive told The Wall Street Journal in early July. (A spokesperson didn’t respond to Canary’s repeated requests for comment.)
Century is aiming to secure a power-supply deal to meet a decade’s worth of electricity demand from the new smelter, according to the Journal. The goal is to finalize plans in the next two years and then begin construction, which could take around three years. In the meantime, the U.S. will continue to see a rapid buildout of solar, wind, and other carbon-free power supplies connecting to the grid.
Governor Beshear has participated in discussions about the smelter’s power supply, in the hopes of landing Century’s megaproject and all of its “good-paying jobs.” His administration “continues to work with multiple experts to determine a location in northeastern Kentucky that includes a river port and can support workforce training as well as provide the cleanest, most reliable electric service capacity needed,” Crystal Staley, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said by email.
Environmental advocates say the aluminum plant represents a chance to reimagine what a major industrial facility can look like: powered by clean energy, equipped with modern pollution controls, and built with local community input from the beginning. Starting sometime this fall, the Sierra Club is planning to host public meetings and distribute flyers in northeastern Kentucky to let residents know about the giant smelter that could potentially be built in their backyards.
“It’s an opportunity for us to engage people who might shy away from other aspects of being an environmental activist and say, ‘Hey, this is something that we can embrace, because it’s going to help us create jobs so that people can stay in their region,’” said Julia Finch, the director of Sierra Club’s Kentucky chapter. “This is a chance for us to lead on what a green transition looks like for industry.”
Aluminum is the most abundant metal in Earth’s crust. But turning it into a sturdy, usable material is a laborious and dirty process — one that begins with scraping topsoil to extract bauxite, a reddish clay rock that is rich in alumina (also called aluminum oxide). The trickiest part comes next: removing oxygen and other molecules to transform that alumina into aluminum. Until the late 19th century, the methods for accomplishing this were so costly that the tinfoil we now buy at the grocery store was considered a precious metal, like gold, silver, and platinum.
Then in 1886, Charles Martin Hall figured out an inexpensive way to smelt aluminum through electrolysis, a technique that uses electrical energy to drive a chemical reaction. Not long after, he helped launch the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which went on to become the U.S. aluminum behemoth presently known as Alcoa.
Around the same time that Hall was tinkering in his woodshed in Oberlin, Ohio, a French inventor named Paul Louis Touissant Héroult was making a similar discovery in Paris. Modern aluminum smelters now use what’s called the Hall-Héroult process — an effective but also energy-intensive and carbon-intensive way of making primary aluminum metal.
Smelting involves dissolving alumina in a molten salt called cryolite, which is heated to over 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. Large carbon blocks, or “anodes,” are lowered down into the highly corrosive bath, and electrical currents run through the entire structure. Aluminum then deposits at the bottom as oxygen combines with carbon in the blocks, creating carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
Today, this electrochemical process contributes about 17 percent of the total CO2 emissions from global aluminum production. It also causes the release of perfluorochemicals (PFCs) — potent and long-lasting greenhouse gases — as well as sulfur dioxide pollution, which can harm people’s respiratory systems and damage trees and crops. In 2021, PFCs accounted for more than half the emissions from Century’s Hawesville smelter and a third of the emissions from its Sebree smelter in Robards, Kentucky, according to the Sierra Club.
Newer smelters can dramatically reduce their PFC emissions by using automated control systems, which Century deploys at its smelter in Grundartangi, Iceland. Researchers are also working to slash CO2 by developing carbon-free blocks. The technology involves using chemically inactive, or “inert,” metallic alloys in the anodes through which the electrical currents flow. Elysis, a joint venture of Alcoa and the mining giant Rio Tinto, says it is making progress toward the large-scale implementation of its inert anodes and has plans for a demonstration plant in Quebec.
The alternative anodes may not be ready in time for a project like Century’s planned green U.S. smelter. Previously, large-scale buyers of aluminum, such as automakers and construction companies, had anticipated that inert anodes would help slash CO2 emissions in the aluminum supply chain in time for companies to meet their 2030 climate goals. But now that’s looking less likely.
“There’s a feeling now that it’s just taking longer to develop that technology,” said Lachlan Wright, a manager of the climate intelligence program at RMI, a clean energy think tank. One challenge might simply be the limited production capacity for the new anodes, which can’t yet meet the demands of a large aluminum user. Beyond that, “It’s not exactly clear what some of the barriers are there,” Wright added.
Still, when it comes to tackling aluminum’s biggest CO2 culprit — all the electricity it takes to run a smelter — the solutions already exist, in the form of renewable energy and other carbon-free sources.
“We don’t need a new or emerging technology,” Sartor said. “We need huge amounts of existing technology, and it needs to be available in places that work for the industry.”
Deep in the heart of Kentucky’s coal country, the scarred and treeless lands of former surface mines are increasingly being repurposed to supply that clean energy.
On another sun-blasted day in early August, I met with Mike Smith in Hazard, a city of some 5,300 people that’s enveloped by the Appalachian Mountains and built along the winding curves of the North Fork Kentucky River.
We hopped in his white pickup truck and headed toward his family’s 800-acre property. For years, they leased the land to Pine Branch Mining, which dynamited the mountaintop to reach coal seams buried beneath the surface. “I can’t say that I was for it,” Smith told me as we drove past modest homes tucked into creekside hollers and up a bumpy gravel road. Today, he said, “the only coal that’s left here is under the river.”
After the mine closed a decade ago, the land was reclaimed: smoothed out, packed down, and covered with vegetation to prevent erosion. Now, the property is about to undergo its latest transformation, as the home of the 80-megawatt Bright Mountain Solar facility.
Landowner Mike Smith and Louise Sizemore of Edelen Renewables surveyed the former mining site that will soon become the Bright Mountain Solar farm during a visit on August 7.
Maria Gallucci/Canary Media
Avangrid, the lead developer, plans to begin installing solar panels here next year, according to Edelen Renewables, the project’s local development partner. Edelen is also helping to advance other “coal-to-solar” projects in the region, including the 200 MW Martin County Solar Project under construction as well as BrightNight’s 800 MW Starfire installation. Rivian, the electric-truck maker, has signed on as the anchor customer for the $1 billion Starfire project, which is in the early stages of development.
Building on old mining sites can be more expensive and logistically trickier than, say, putting panels on flat, solid farmland. For one, hauling equipment to the former mines requires driving big, heavy vehicles up narrow mountain roads. Smith’s site is divided into uneven tiers of unpaved land. On our visit, he expertly accelerated his truck up a steep dirt path. When we reached the top, I audibly exhaled with relief. Smith gently laughed.
Despite the challenges, there’s an obvious poetry to building clean energy in a place that once yielded fossil fuels. Ideally, it can also bring justice to communities that are still hurting economically and spiritually from the coal industry’s inexorable decline. Bright Mountain and other coal-to-solar developments are projected to generate millions of dollars in local tax revenue over their lifetimes, using land that was left unsuitable for anything other than cattle grazing.
“You’ve got to reinvent yourself,” Smith told me as we gazed at the empty expanse of land where the solar project will eventually stand. Dragonflies darted by, and a quail called from somewhere on the property. “That’s the only way we can survive.”
The next day, I met Adam Edelen, the founder and CEO of Edelen Renewables, at his office in downtown Lexington. Sitting in a wicker rocking chair and sipping a pint glass of sweet tea, Edelen lamented the years of “outright hostility” to renewable energy development in the state. However, some Kentucky policymakers are starting to recognize the need to clean up the state’s electricity sector — if not explicitly to tackle climate change, then at least to attract manufacturers like Century Aluminum that want to power their operations with carbon-free energy sources.
The Martin County Solar Project spans 900 acres on the old Martiki mine site in Pilgrim, Kentucky.
Edelen Renewables
“Now, we’re in this headlong rush to make sure we’ve got a diversified energy portfolio to meet the needs of the private sector,” Edelen said. For Century in particular, he added, “The issue is that they need cheap power and they need green energy, neither of which Kentucky has a lot of.”
Electricity accounts for about 40 percent of a smelter’s total operating expenses. To remain cost competitive, aluminum producers need to hit a “magic benchmark” of around $40 per megawatt-hour, said Wright of RMI. Currently, power-purchase agreements for U.S. renewable energy projects are in the range of $50 to $60 per megawatt-hour — a significant difference for facilities that can consume 1 megawatt-hour of electricity just to produce a single metric ton of aluminum.
Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act could help to narrow that price gap for Century and other primary aluminum makers.
The 45X production tax credit is a keystone of the IRA, which President Joe Biden signed into law two years ago. The incentive allows producers of critical materials, solar panels, batteries, and other types of “advanced manufacturing” products to receive a federal tax credit for up to 10 percent of their production costs, including electricity.
The IRA also set aside another $10 billion for the 48C investment tax credit, an Obama-era program that’s now available to help manufacturers install equipment that reduces emissions by 20 percent. Aluminum producers could use the tax credit to cover the cost of technology that improves their operating efficiency while also slashing CO2 pollution.
Edelen Renewables says the 48C tax credit will apply to all the coal-to-solar projects, which the company hopes can supply some of the electricity needed for Century’s green smelter. Under the expanded program, renewable energy projects built in “energy communities,” including former coal mine sites, can receive tax credits worth up to 40 percent of project costs, significantly lowering the final cost of electricity associated with the installations.
Eastern Kentucky “has played such a vital role in powering the country’s economy for the last 100 years,” Edelen said. Coal communities “deserve a place in the newer economy, and they’re hungry for that.”
Construction on the Martin County Solar Project began in 2023 and is slated to be completed later this year.
Edelen Renewables
Over in Ashland, John Holbrook said he’s anxiously watching to see if northeastern Kentucky will find its place in the nation’s green industrial transition. If Century selects the region to host its new aluminum smelter, the area’s trade councils and union apprenticeship programs will be more than ready to start training and recruiting workers, he said.
But Holbrook and other local labor leaders aren’t holding their breath. Several people I spoke to recalled the elation they felt in 2018 when the company Braidy Industries broke ground near Ashland on a $1.5 billion aluminum rolling mill — and the heartbreak that followed years later when Braidy backtracked on the plant and its promise of hundreds of jobs. Braidy’s former CEO was later accused of misleading the company’s board members, state officials, and journalists about the project’s true financial status.
While the Braidy scandal was a unique affair, the fallout still lingers in discussions about Century’s green smelter. “I think they’d have to start moving trailers in before we’d feel confident to start saying, ‘Yeah, this is really happening,’” Holbrook said from behind his wide wooden desk.
Still, he remains “cautiously optimistic” about the prospect of Century building its aluminum plant here. “It would be region-changing,” he said. “And life-changing.”
Does your art history background impact how you approach the label?
It’s sort of like a classic liberal arts degree that you don’t have a real plan for. What I like about art history, even self-taught and my own personal education beyond college, is that it grounds you. There’s an anti-history thing happening right now, where I feel like it’s like let’s throw out the old guard. A lot of it’s with good reason, I get why. The idea of institution, higher education, the idea of cis white male artists being this pedigree. I like that things are being upended. I like seeing how culture moves back and forth.
It’s more about human nature and that a lot of these things that we think are new are not actually new. We think we’re at the precipice of the most dynamic time because there’s more information, more science, more money. People have been dealing with these fears for thousands of years, about government, about taste, and about how to present yourself. There’s so much available now to learn, especially free. It’s great to have a study, whatever that is, that grounds you. It’s a nerve wracking time if you have no basis in history.
People have been stressed about art and money and expression for a long, long time. I think that’s comforting in a weird way. TV was the devil, and maybe still is, but everyone was like, “Oh, the TV viewing public, everyone’s going to be so stupid.” Then that was the internet and then now. You have to remember that we’re part of a bigger continuum. It helps you from getting overwhelmed.
You described the Detroit scene that Ghostly was born out of as ‘serious.’ What stands out?
I never exactly thought of it in that frame. I would maybe have used the word sincere at the time. Even friends of mine and I had a fake manifesto about sincerity, and we were in college. It seems extremely precious now, but the idea was more like, to use your word, “Let’s take it seriously and apply our shared efforts.” Especially now we’re all kind of afraid to be parodies of ourselves and we’re afraid to be overzealous. It’s a weird flip-flop, but there’s an intention that a lot of artists have that I admire.
It doesn’t mean being self-serious. Taking your work seriously is important, even if it’s early. Valuing it even though people around you may not. You have to lean into what you do for someone else to lean into it. That’s a hard line to hit. Wanting to be taken seriously by Detroit, which was and is a very intentional place, people will judge if you don’t come correct which I like about it, but also be okay being yourself. It’s that dance between awareness and self-awareness, intention and sincerity.
It’s interesting how the size of a city can impact this.
That’s why you incubate your own scene too. There’s a macro scene of the city that comes before you, the history of the city, especially in New York and LA. Then there’s the people you communicate with daily that you are doing gigs with. We used to have club nights in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Every week it was a little bit of exercise. I probably didn’t think of it that way, but you’d bring the new MP3 that you just exported, play it, road test it. Obviously if it sucks, you’re not failing, but you’re iterating.
I like the idea of keeping yourself inside of a group of people that you trust that also want it as bad as you do. Then taking that to the stage. You get your butt kicked a lot. A lot of my memories with the label is overreaching too hard on certain projects or being over our heads on certain things where we thought we were ready for something we weren’t. It forces you to reeducate and not be afraid. It is a cliché, but failure really is part of the deal.
Were there non-American labels you saw as templates?
For sure. Historically there’s the DNA labels of indie music culture, Rough Trade, Factory Records and 4AD, the seventies, eighties British thing. In Detroit there were a lot of local labels, still are, that are self-owned, self-financed and self-distributed. It made it seem accessible, back to the DIY aspect of it. Both were templates. One was more majestic or mystical to me. That you could have a band as weird as Joy Division and they could in some form change the world, but then locally have records that were made in a basement, travel the world and change the world too, like a Jeff Mills or an Underground Resistance. They’re lessons in presentation. How do you tell a story? Especially without video, without internet, how do you get a message across? I love the theatrics and the presentation of independent labels as a template. How do you tell a story without tons of capital or access to major marketing? Great record labels have been doing that for decades.
When did you first notice America embracing electronic music? What change did it bring?
It’s not quite as cyclical anymore. I think about the EDM thing a lot, how it was tricky. At the time people were like, “Well, electronic music is blowing up.” Maybe it’s because I’m not the best A&R person, but it’s okay to know that you don’t have to be part of every wave, to use another surfing metaphor. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just like, “Well, that’s a wave someone else is taking and hopefully it will lift us too.” Some good things came out of that era. We didn’t have a direct line to it, but I do think it led to rising tides raising all boats. Sometimes we forget that not every audience is our audience, and that’s okay. We’re not failing because we’re not reaching every single person who might like electronic music.
What are some of the larger music tech shifts you’ve weathered?
It’s harder as you get older because your risk tolerance changes. Music is still driven by young people, so you want to adhere to that. As an Ann Arbor person, I accept that I’m not going to like everything and nor should I. You bring other people in who have a better sense of it. My attitude has always been, in all of these micro movements, there’s usually something that’s being presented that will benefit our philosophy and the type of artists that we work with.
We came in at the same time as piracy and Napster, Limewire, a big part of how music got to people in a CD era. That benefited a lot of artists, it also created a sense of the idea of taste sharing. That’s why I do my newsletter. The fun of that and the fun of MySpace was, I could look into your crate, so to speak, and see what you’re into. That’s a human instinct that isn’t going to go away. Streaming obviously has detractors, but you’re like, “Okay, how do I reach as many people as possible?” Social media is a double-edged sword, but these are all tools.
You try to have a critical eye of what’s not working. I believe in misusing platforms. Don’t just try to do what the most successful person does, do it the way that’s a little wonky and people will still understand what you’re doing. Our job as creative people is to make the most of the tools that are available and that includes misusing them.
What’s your work-life balance like?
I admire people who have a good demarcation of personal and professional. Integrating fun or habit into your practice. I’m getting better, but it’s hard because it still is a “nine to five” world you have to deal with. You have to make sure people are available, try to make the most of each other’s time. Writing the newsletter is my best effort at something consistent, more for the sense of shipping something that has no business objective. It’s just pleasure, connection and community. You have to schedule everything from my experience. I’m still learning how to do that.
You’ve maintained the newsletter for a few years now, right?
Just about three. It’s almost like having a pen pal. The fact that it’s routine and formalized makes it easy to explain what it is. Whenever people are like, “I want to start a newsletter” I’m like, “What’s the thing you consistently want to do?” Some people can rip a blog post once a week and it’s hot and fresh, but I don’t want to be afraid I’m not going to have an idea or I have to come up with a bad one just to ship. It’s a form of giving flowers and showing appreciation.
What are some of the most important conversations you have with up and coming artists?
We all think we speak the same language and ‘success’ is a weird word because it implies validation financially or people wise. Maybe satisfaction is a better word. It’s like satisfaction is such a big part of creative work, whether you’re releasing it, shepherding it or editing it. Some people just like to be part of the process and help. We’re helping someone see themselves. Great managers do this. Asking what actually is success? Each record, project, book, is like building a statue. I think about mountaineering, you don’t just go up. It’s not a linear thing. It’s important to ask, what do you want out of this? That doesn’t mean the whole artistic move that you’re making. It means this project, what is this? Is it “I want to go on tour”? Okay, let’s put everything towards that energy. I want to stream a lot, I want to license music. People are afraid of setting goals, myself included, because you’re afraid of not getting them, but if you don’t, you’ll end up being like, was that worth my time? That’s the pain of not identifying what the goal is as a group or as an individual.
I’m into the idea of artistic practice. How do you get inspiration? How do you ship, how do you communicate, how do you share? Developing what you see as a practice that’s sustainable. I am very much in favor of when artists can or want to have day jobs. I think it’s a great thing. Put yourself in a position to be able to continue to make work as your best bet to succeed. Creativity is this daring-ness. It’s a lot more about consistency and attentiveness than doing something wild. It’s iteration versus inspiration. It’s a little bit of both.
A Hamilton couple convicted of exploiting Pacific migrants have had their convictions quashed after the New Zealand’s Court of Appeal ruled there had been a miscarriage of justice.
Anthony Swarbrick and Christina Kewa-Swarbrick were found guilty on nine representative charges of aiding and abetting, completion of a visa application known to be false or misleading and provision of false or misleading information, at a trial in the Hamilton District Court in February 2023.
A month later, Kewa-Swarbrick, who originally came from Papua New Guinea, was sentenced to 10 months home detention. She completed nine months of that sentence.
Swarbrick served his full eight months of home detention.
In February this year the Court of Appeal found that in Swarbrick’s case, the trial judge’s summing up of the case was “not fair and balanced” leading to a “miscarriage of justice”.
It found the trial judge “undermined the defence” and “the summing up took a key issue away from the jury.”
“Viewed overall, the Judge forcefully suggested what the jury would, and impliedly should, find by way of the elements of the offence. The Judge made the ultimate assessment that was for the jury to make. The trial was unfair to Mr Swarbrick for that reason. We conclude that this resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” the decision states.
It ordered Swarbrick’s convictions be quashed and a retrial.
Christina Kewa-Swarbrick . . . “Compensation . . . will help us rebuild our lives.” Image: RNZ
Charges withdrawn
It came to the same conclusions for Kewa-Swarbrick in April, but the retrial was abandoned after the Crown withdrew the charges in May, leading to the Hamilton District Court ordering the charges against the couple be dismissed.
Immigration NZ said it withdrew the charges after deciding it was no longer in the public interest to hold a re-trial.
The couple, who have since separated, are now investigating redress options from the government for the miscarriage of justice.
“We lost everything. Our marriage, our house. I lost a huge paying job offshore that I couldn’t go back to because we were on bail,” Swarbrick told RNZ.
“It’s had a huge effect, emotionally, financially. We had to take our children out of private school.”
Swarbrick had since been unable to return to his job and now had health issues as a result of the legal battles.
Kewa-Swarbrick said the court case had “destroyed” her life.
“It’s affected my home, my marriage, my children.”
Not able to return to PNG
She had not been able to return to Papua New Guinea since the case because she had received death threats.
“My health has deteriorated.”
The couple estimated they had spent at least $90,000 on legal fees, but their reputation had been severely affected by the case and media reports, preventing them from getting new jobs.
The couple’s ventures came to the attention of Immigration NZ in 2016 and charges were laid in 2018. The trial was delayed until 2023 because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Immigration NZ alleged the couple had arranged for groups of seasonal workers from Papua New Guinea to work illegally in New Zealand for very low wages between 2013 and 2016.
The trial heard the workers were led to believe they would be travelling to New Zealand to work under the RSE scheme in full time employment, receiving an hourly rate of $15 per hour, but ended up being paid well below the minimum wage.
However, Kewa-Swarbrick and Swarbrick argued they always intended to bring the PNG nationals to New Zealand for a cultural exchange and work experience.
“They fundraised $1000 each for living costs. We funded everything else. And when they got here they just completely shut us down,” said Kewa-Swarbrick.
She said it was “a relief” to finally be exonerated.
“The compensation part is going to be the last part because it will help us rebuild our lives.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Your recent paintings are much more abstract and bodily than what I’ve seen of your work. How did this shift in your practice come to be?
It came through thinking about how I wanted to grow and mature as a painter and what kind of painter I really wanted to be. I saw my figurative work as a really good start, but I wanted to be a painter where there’s a bit more ambiguity and mystery and refinement within each piece. And the way I tried to solve that problem was through abstraction and formal experimentation in the studio.
I had this big painting in my studio, and I was taking a detail photo of that. And when I saw the detail, I thought that this, in itself, should be a painting. And when I made that painting, I loved it. Then I refined that painting, and from there I made it bigger, I used more colors, different colors. I started going formally, and I liked what I saw.
I think this body of work is really expansive. It can go in so many directions. What could I do if there’s more shapes on the next one? What could I do if there’s more texture? If there’s an area of way more detail in one section and huge swaths of one color in another, how would that change what people infer from the work?
Is this excitement—about all the different directions this kind of painting can go in—something you felt with prior bodies of work?
This feels more me. It feels like no one else could do this. This is my idea as an artist. And this looks like my work. I like it when people make associations with me and other artists, but no one’s ever made a painting that is exactly like mine. My newest painting is a step towards me.
Elana Bowsher, Green Landscape, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 70 inches (152.4 x 177.8 cm)
It’s so hard to have the confidence to make a shift like that in your practice. Was it hard to explain to other people when you shifted your practice in this new direction? Did you face any pushback?
Yes, I did. But not with Hannah [Hoffman] and Adrianna [Cole]. They got it right away. But, yeah, there were previous people who I’ve worked with who were like, “Stick to the pelvic bones.”
I think the job of an artist is to just try and keep pushing yourself, and I don’t understand when people don’t do that. It’s like, it’s your job. You want to get better at your job and keep growing.
Definitely.
I always look at my paintings with a very critical eye. I’m sure most artists do. And I think, how do I get better, and how do I become more me as an artist? And because I had the support I care about, I thought, well, I don’t care what other people think. You’ve got to be a little rebellious as an artist, even if it’s quiet rebellion.
How do you balance that career aspect of artmaking with art as a creative pursuit?
I’m very interested in the business side of this world. I like thinking about that part. And I will say, with my show at Hannah Hoffman, I went all in on the creative part.
Elana Bowsher, Pelvis, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 70 inches (152.4 x 177.8 cm)
I started working on it in February. I made a list of goals of what I wanted, which some of them were just that I wanted the show to have a certain mood. I wanted it to be very sensual and a bit moody. I didn’t know exactly what kind of mood, but I wanted it to feel mature and bodily, and I wanted to be brave. And so, with that set of instructions to myself, I just went all in.
I decided that I would ignore the people, or the part of me that said, “Just do the same work.” And I thought it was actually a prudent business decision, also. For my first actual solo show in LA, to make a big leap, because that shows myself and the viewers that I am growing… So, I thought it was a business and an artistic move. At this point, I’m not far enough in my career to be stuck with one thing. I want to set myself up to have a very free and expansive new body work.
You said that you like thinking about the business side. What do you mean by that?
Right now, it’s an interesting time. I think, to be honest, a lot of artists and gallerists started upping their pricing in a really significant way that wasn’t equating to the amount of shows they had had. So we were just careful with pricing. I think it’s important to not rush that side of things.
Obviously, it’s very scary to have this as your job. You feel like you need to take every opportunity, but actually it’s a good business decision to say no to things. I’ve learned that the hard way. I’ve made decisions based off stress, off monetary stress and thinking other opportunities wouldn’t come. But I think all you can do is learn from that.
And then it’s also so important to find the right fit business-wise. With this show and working with Hannah, it was the exact right fit for both of us. Because she saw the work and responded to it. She watched this body of work grow, especially over the past year, until she offered me a show. There was no forcing a square peg in a round hole or whatever. And that’s lucky.
I’m curious to hear about how this work connects to LA, where you and I both live. I feel like I see so much art that’s more vocal about the fact that it’s by an LA painter. But this feels very otherworldly. The pinks I recognize a bit from LA.
That’s a really good question. It’s funny, because a collector came into my studio, and was like, “That’s so funny that you’re from San Francisco, because these look like Bay Area colors.”
Elana Bowsher, Untitled, 2024, oil on linen, 13 x 10 inches (33 x 25.4 cm)
I really didn’t know what they meant. But then I was thinking about Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. And my painting does have that! The dirty, muddy stuff. Which probably comes from the weather there.
I think what I get from LA is more practical. The cost of living here, while exorbitant, is not as exorbitant as New York. Or the Bay. I think that LA gave me the freedom to have changed bodies of work and explore. We have that freedom a little bit more here.
The color palette, I think it just… I didn’t want 10 different color palettes in this show. Most of the underpainting is brown, and so, even though there’s cooler and warmer paintings, it is all united by this muddy, earthier tone. I think I could probably answer your question better after I get back from New York in the fall, to see if my palette changes.
Elana Bowsher, Dive, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 96 inches (152.4 x 243.8 cm)
I feel like there is something kind of Alice Waters about your painting.
Yeah. Love her.
What are you going to do in New York?
I am taking over a friend’s studio. I’m going to paint. I’m going to make works on paper. I’m going to experiment with new materials. I’m just going to try and grow and challenge myself. Obviously, I’ve gone to New York a lot, and I always go and see shows there, but even just being there and going to see the type of work that’s there, I hope it will push me further.
You have an interesting narrative with painting, where the artwork is a challenge, a battleground. Can you trace the roots of that back in your life?
I was a very serious ballerina. That’s a very challenging art. You’re never good enough. And I went to very rigorous high school, too.
I think I definitely approach painting as problem-solving. That probably comes from how I grew up. In San Francisco, in the community I was raised in, it was so much about being better, getting better. So I push myself, not even in a stressful way. But there’s always problems that come up in a painting or making a work of art, and so, I think, well, how do you solve those problems? And that’s not a negative thing. I take it as motivation.
I don’t know why you would be an artist if you aren’t willing to face a challenge. It’s already so difficult, so why would I do it if it was not exciting, if it didn’t move me forward as a human? If I didn’t want a challenge, I would choose something else.
Elana Bowsher, Abstract Plume VI, 2024, oil on linen, 50 x 40 inches (127 x 101.6 cm)
If you are so conscious of being critical of your work, is it hard to know when to end?
That’s something I talk with my therapist about a lot. Like you have to have a critical eye as a writer, as a painter, whatever. But hopefully, when you’re working you can let that subside a little bit.
Like being in the painting is one way to emerge on the other side of your self-criticism.
That is actually why I listen to podcasts when I paint. It’s a little bit distracting in a really good way, so it takes away my anxiety, my fully critical brain. It’s a little bit distracting in a really beautiful way. If I am listening to music, it has to be really lyric-heavy music. If it’s too moody or there’s no lyrics, I get too in my head.
What kind of podcasts?
Murder podcasts.
You’re not the first painter that I’ve talked to that listens to true crime while they paint. Actually, have you considered working in any other mediums?
Yeah. I went to UCLA mostly for ceramics and sculpture. I would definitely like to bring that part of my practice back in, to meld it with this new body of work in some way. And ceramics is so much a part of LA and San Francisco art history, so it would really make sense for me. I just have to figure out how to enter that, where it makes sense in conversation with painting.
Did you go to an MFA program?
No.
What was it like trying to be an artist when you were right out of undergrad?
I worked for a couple artists. I worked for Shio Kusaka for about eight months. I feel like all artists should do that, and most artists do, but that was good training. At least, to see how she ran her day. It’s not so much about the technical stuff, but, yeah, speaking of the business stuff—Shio and Jonas [Wood] are so clued into how to be good businesspeople. And then I worked for Liz Glynn, who’s a sculptor, and I did the ceramic part of her projects. And those were really good learning experiences.
After that I decided to immerse myself in the LA art community. I had a full-time job, and I was doing my art in the afternoons and evenings. I felt like I was pushing myself enough that I didn’t want to interrupt that flow and go do an MFA program. I felt like I was meeting enough people and looking at enough work that I was feeding myself.
Where do you see your work going within painting?
I think experimenting with more texture, more depth—those are two things I really want to push for the next paintings. I really liked working at a larger scale. Eight feet long by five feet. Working at that scale feels very exciting.
After I take a good break, I feel very excited about all the areas I could move towards. I’m really excited to incorporate drawing into the new works. I would love to do a works on paper show or a works on cardboard show. How would that work? How would that mess things up in a good way?
Elana Bowsher, Hannah Hoffman, June 29 – August 10, 2024, install view
The Victorian Greens have demanded an independent inquiry into Australian police tactics and alleged excessive use of force today against antiwar protesters at the Land Forces expo in Melbourne.
State Greens leader Ellen Sandell said her party had lodged a formal protest to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).
“We have seen police throw flash grenades into crowds of protesters, use pepper spray indiscriminately, and whip people with horse whip,” she also said in a X post.
“These are military-style tactics used by police against protesters who are trying to have their say, as is their democratic right.”
Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people as officers were pelted with rocks, manure and tomatoes in what has been described as Melbourne’s biggest police operation in two decades, reports Al Jazeera.
The Victorian Greens and I have demanded an independent inquiry into Victoria Police tactics and excessive use of force at the Land Forces protests in Melbourne today. pic.twitter.com/p8iLU073S0
The Land Forces expo protest. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot
The pro-Palestine protesters, also demanding a change in Canberra’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, clashed with the police outside the arms fair.
Thousands picketed the Land Forces 2024 military weapons exposition. Australia has seen numerous protests against the country’s arms industry’s involvement in the war over the past 11 months.
Protesting for ‘those killed’ in Gaza
“We’re protesting to stand up for all those who have been killed by the type of weapons [in Gaza] on display at the convention,” said Jasmine Duff from organiser Students for Palestine in a statement.
About 1800 police officers have been deployed at the Melbourne Convention Centre hosting the three-day weapons exhibition. Up to 25,000 people had previously been expected to turn up at the protest.
Two dozen people were reported as requiring medical treatment, said a Victoria state police spokesperson in a statement.
Demonstrators also lit fires in the street and disrupted traffic and public transport, while missiles were thrown at police horses.
However, no serious injuries were reported, according to police.
Deputy Greens leader backs protesters
In a speech to the Senate, the deputy federal leader of the Greens, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, offered her solidarity to “the thousands protesting in Melbourne today to say no to the business of war”.
Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi . . . [Australia’s] Labor government is complicit in genocide”. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot“[The governing] Labor tries to distract and deflect, but there is no deflection. So long as we have defence contracts with Israeli weapons companies, the Labor government is complicit in genocide, so long as you refuse to impose sanctions on Israel, this Labor government is complicit in genocide, and there are no excuses for inaction,” she said.
“The UK has suspended some arms sales to Israel. Canada today is halting more arms sales to Israel.
“What will it take for [Australia’s] Labor government to take action against the apartheid state of Israel?”
Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people at today’s Land Forces expo in Melbourne, Victoria. Image: V_Palestine20
Internal WhatsApp messages have surfaced – exchanges between current and former employees of ABC Bullion – which cast doubt over the group’s precious metals storage. Kim Wingerei reports.
As revealed by MWM, economist John Adams has been encouraging ASIC to properly investigate the storage practices of ABC Bullion for several years. ABC is an Australian precious metals trading company which Adam’s says has engaged in misleading storage practices. ASIC did conduct an investigation but found no wrongdoing.
For its part, ABC Bullion strongly denies any wrongdoing and accuses Adams of being “reckless and misleading”.
The discontinued ASIC investigation was brought up by Malcolm Roberts in the Senate last night (Tuesday, September 10), the Senator saying, “ASIC is failing the Australian people.” He highlighted how ASIC spent over nine months and more than $300,000 on an investigation that found nothing, despite the company storing bullion on behalf of clients in a building that may not have been legally occupied and consequently may not have been properly insured.
Roberts also questioned the involvement of Prime Minister Albanese in effectively endorsing ABC Bullion and its parent company, Pallion, at a press conference in October 2023, when, in addition to the ASIC investigation of ABC Bullion, Pallion was the subject of a long-running investigation by the ATO in relation to a GST-scam.
MWM has now been shown WhatsApp messages from the staff at ABC Bullion that show the questionable practices alleged by Adams not only took place but were a well-known practice at the company. According to Adams, the members of the chat group called ‘The Good Place’ consisted of seven current and former ABC Bullion employees who made a series of damning statements about ABC Bullion and its Managing Director, Janie Simpson.
These encrypted messages, spanning approximately 70 pages, were supplied to Adams by an ABC Bullion employee turned whistleblower. In the whistleblower’s 23-page statement provided to ASIC, they confirmed that the encrypted communications were authentic as well as named each participant in the WhatsApp Group chat*.
Specifically, the whistleblower named a former Sales and Business Development Manager, a former accounts manager, and a current National Sales Manager.
Mrs Grout went public in March 2021 via Reddit.
The context of the WhatsApp messages came after an ABC client, Mrs Julie Grout, went public on social media platform Reddit in March 2021, having received a phone call that her physical silver bullion property held in ABC Bullion’s secure storage product did not exist.
This revelation was despite Mrs Grout paying storage fees for over six months and receiving ABC Bullion Metal Account Statements stating that her physical bullion was in storage under ABC Bullion’s custodianship.
In a statement to MWM, the client still recounts the horror she experienced in dealing with ABC Bullion’s storage program:
“My experience with ABC Bullion was horrific. Despite them issuing statements that my property was held in their storage facility, the truth was the complete opposite. I continue to stand by my previous comments that their storage program is a sophisticated scam.”
In response to Mrs Grout going public, current and former ABC Bullion employees made the following admissions in The Good Place:
“Tell the ops dude for a solution. Guy has x amount of metal been paying storage fees and we haven’t stored it for him ever.”
“You know how fucked it will be if got out? The secure storage program is way worse as your charging clients for a service that it is not provided. Its a fraud”
“Just covering for the business XXXX hahaha we know what we do with “secure”. We sell it and order more to replenish, repeat cycle.”
“When I was working in accounting I felt like I’m doing something terribly illegal every month end when stock and storage reports were getting finalised.”
“1. Your charging a big premium to the client without paying premium to buy the metal. 2. Your charging a clients for a service of storing it when your not storing it.”
“Xxxxx throw it straight on Janie. We tried to stop her selling other ppls metal.”
MWM understands that ASIC never interviewed Mrs Grout despite them having access to these revelations.
In response to questions sent to ABC Bullion, a company spokesperson stated that “No grievance or whistleblowing reports have been received from any employee or confidential source at any time, relating to or regarding the allegations made by John Adams.” ABC Bullion also states that they have only ever had one [other] complaint about their storage practices, a claim that was resolved with the client. ABC Bullion’s full statement is available here.
ABC Bullion changes its terms
Shortly after the Reddit post, ABC Bullion appears to have sought to limit the possibility of other storage defaults by altering the length of time that it had to meet redemption requests. They did so quietly without any notification to its clients or even to its own staff.
Specifically, in April 2021, ABC Bullion altered its website, changing the terms of redemption from 48 hours to 10 business days, which remains the stated retrieval time today. (Redemption time is the time from when a client gives notice of physical removal of bullion to when it will be available.)
The change to ABC Bullion’s website was met at the time with derision by employees within The Good Place.
One group member stated that the change “is the dumbest shit ever” while a former ABC Bullion accounts manager stated that ABC Bullion’s leadership was “so sneaky” and that “they are overconfident and pathetic.”
Moving bullion to illegally occupied building?
Our earlier story about ABC Bullion revealed how the company was storing bullion in an illegally occupied building at 2 Lillian Fowler Place in Marrickville and how this took place 3 1/2 weeks after ASIC had commenced its investigation into the company’s practices.
The ASIC investigation was concluded with a finding of “no wrongdoing.” An ASIC spokesperson told MWM that “ASIC does not comment on details of its investigation and enforcement methods.”
According to John Adams, both ABC Bullion and ASIC have questions to answer, given the facts and documentation he uncovered during his investigation, including the messages from the WhatsApp chats as well as the evidence from the local council showing that the Marrickville building did not have a Certificate of Occupation (CoO) until August 27 this year, incidentally the day after our first article was published.
ABC Bullion refutes this but offers no proof or specifics other than stating, “The Occupation Certificate was received prior to any engagement with Michael West media, including your 26 August story.”
John Adams remains dissatisfied with the ASIC investigation, telling MWM:
“These secret encrypted messages show that my 608-page report of alleged misconduct that was lodged with ASIC were not baseless or a conspiracy theory. Any suggestion along these lines is nothing more than a nonsensical ad hominem attack.
“Rather, the truth of the matter is a former ABC Bullion employee turned whistleblower was able to demonstrate a secret network of current and former employees who openly confessed to long-running improper storage practices at ABC Bullion, even calling their own employer as engaging in fraud.”
“ABC Bullion also needs to explain as to why did the company, in April 2021, require an additional 8 business days to retrieve physical bullion from their vaults if everything was in order?”
“Lastly, ASIC needs to explain to Australian taxpayers what did it find when it investigated these WhatsApp messages.”
___
* MWM has decided not to publish the names of the individuals involved.
The domestic company’s ATR 72-600 planes will be used to link Nouméa’s international La Tontouta airport to Port Vila, the company said.
Air Calédonie said the new agreement to fly to Vanuatu comes at a “difficult time”, almost four months after riots broke out in the French Pacific archipelago.
Seeking new markets The ongoing unrest has made a huge negative impact on the economy and — because of long periods of curfew and state of emergency — has also heavily impacted domestic and international flights, causing in turn huge losses in business for the airlines.
“This new connection therefore is a vital opportunity to maintain employment and a sufficient level of business that are necessary to the company’s survival”, said Air Calédonie CEO Daniel Houmbouy, who also mentioned a “necessary capacity to adapt and evolve”.
New link to Paris As part of a stringent cost-cutting exercise, Air Calin has had to cut staff numbers as well as reduce its regional connections.
It is also currently considering putting one of its aircraft on lease.
However, Air Calin is also preparing to launch a new direct Paris-Nouméa connection, via Bangkok, sometime in 2025, using a 291-seater Airbus A330-900neo on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The company is currently recruiting 12 pilots and 20 navigating flight assistants who would be based mainly in Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.
Here again, the plan is directly connected to New Caledonia’s unrest and its impact on the economy.
“It’s all about continuing to generate an acceptable level of revenue to be able to bear fixed costs, in response to the consequences of the local economic context’s recent upsets”.
On a similar destination, Air Calin has also recently opened another connection via Singapore.
But regional routes have also been affected, sometimes suspended (Melbourne), sometimes significantly contracted (Sydney, Brisbane, Auckland, Papeete).
As part of the restructuration, the new long-haul route via Bangkok would effectively replace the older connection to Paris via Tokyo-Narita.
Tuna fisheries industry in New Caledonia . . . also hit by the ongoing political crisis. Image: Armement du Nord/RNZ
Collateral damage for fishing industry This has already caused major concerns from local fishing industry stakeholders, especially those exporting extra fresh tuna directly to Japan by plane.
“This will directly threaten the future of our industry. The repercussions will be catastrophic both in terms of employment in our industry and for [New Caledonia’s] economy,” commented Mario Lopez, who heads local tuna fishing company Armement du Nord, writing on social networks.
He said what was at stake was “300 to 400 tonnes of yellowfin sashimi-grade tuna which until now were sent each year for auction on Japanese markets”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In 2023, the fast fashion giant Shein was everywhere. Crisscrossing the globe, airplanes ferried small packages of its ultra-cheap clothing from thousands of suppliers to tens of millions of customer mailboxes in 150 countries. Influencers’ “#sheinhaul” videos advertised the company’s trendy styles on social media, garnering billions of views.
At every step, data was created, collected, and analyzed. To manage all this information, the fast fashion industry has begun embracing emerging AI technologies. Shein uses proprietary machine-learning applications — essentially, pattern-identification algorithms — to measure customer preferences in real time and predict demand, which it then services with an ultra-fast supply chain.
As AI makes the business of churning out affordable, on-trend clothing faster than ever, Shein is among the brands under increasing pressure to become more sustainable, too. The company has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
But climate advocates and researchers say the company’s lightning-fast manufacturing practices and online-only business model are inherently emissions-heavy — and that the use of AI software to catalyze these operations could be cranking up its emissions. Those concerns were amplified by Shein’s third annual sustainability report, released late last month, which showed the company nearly doubled its carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023.
“AI enables fast fashion to become the ultra-fast fashion industry, Shein and Temu being the fore-leaders of this,” said Sage Lenier, the executive director of Sustainable and Just Future, a climate nonprofit. “They quite literally could not exist without AI.” (Temu is a rapidly rising e-commerce titan, with a marketplace of goods that rival Shein’s in variety, price, and sales.)
In the 12 years since Shein was founded, it has become known for its uniquely prolific manufacturing, which reportedly generated over $30 billion of revenue for the company in 2023. Although estimates vary, a new Shein design may take as little as 10 days to become a garment, and up to 10,000 items are added to the site each day. The company reportedly offers as many as 600,000 items for sale at any given time with an average price tag of roughly $10. (Shein declined to confirm or deny these reported numbers.) One market analysis found that 44 percent of Gen Zers in the United States buy at least one item from Shein every month.
That scale translates into massive environmental impacts. According to the company’s sustainability report, Shein emitted 16.7 million total metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2023 — more than what four coal power plants spew out in a year. The company has also come under fire for textile waste, high levels of microplastic pollution, and exploitative labor practices. According to the report, polyester — a synthetic textile known for shedding microplastics into the environment — makes up 76 percent of its total fabrics, and only 6 percent of that polyester is recycled.
And a recent investigation found that factory workers at Shein suppliers regularly work 75-hour weeks, over a year after the company pledged to improve working conditions within its supply chain. Although Shein’s sustainability report indicates that labor conditions are improving, it also shows that in third-party audits of over 3,000 suppliers and subcontractors, 71 percent received a score of C or lower on the company’s grade scale of A to E — mediocre at best.
Machine learning plays an important role in Shein’s business model. Although Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of global strategy and corporate affairs, told Business Insider last August that AI was not central to its operations, he indicated otherwise during a presentation at a retail conference at the beginning of this year.
Peter Pernot-Day speaking at the Collision 2024 technology conference in June. Piaras Ó Mídheach / Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images
“We are using machine-learning technologies to accurately predict demand in a way that we think is cutting edge,” he said. Pernot-Day told the audience that all of Shein’s 5,400 suppliers have access to an AI software platform that gives them updates on customer preferences, and they change what they’re producing to match it in real time.
“This means we can produce very few copies of each garment,” he said. “It means we waste very little and have very little inventory waste.” On average, the company says it stocks between 100 to 200 copies of each item — a stark contrast with more conventional fast fashion brands, which typically produce thousands of each item per season, and try to anticipate trends months in advance. Shein calls its model “on-demand,” while a technology analyst who spoke to Vox in 2021 called it “real-time” retail.
At the conference, Pernot-Day also indicated that the technology helps the company pick up on “micro trends” that customers want to wear. “We can detect that, and we can act on that in a way that I think we’ve really pioneered,” he said. A designer who filed a recent class action lawsuit in a New York District Court alleges that the company’s AI market analysis tools are used in an “industrial-scale scheme of systematic, digital copyright infringement of the work of small designers and artists,” that scrapes designs off the internet and sends them directly to factories for production.
In an emailed statement to Grist, a Shein spokesperson reiterated Peter Pernot-Day’s assertion that technology allows the company to reduce waste and increase efficiency and suggested that the company’s increased emissions in 2023 were attributable to booming business. “We do not see growth as antithetical to sustainability,” the spokesperson said.
An analysis of Shein’s sustainability report by the Business of Fashion, a trade publication, found that last year, the company’s emissions rose at almost double the rate of its revenue — making Shein the highest-emitting company in the fashion industry. By comparison, Zara’s emissions rose half as much as its revenue. For other industry titans, such as H&M and Nike, sales grew while emissions fell from the year before.
Shein’s emissions are especially high because of its reliance on air shipping, said Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. “AI has wide applications in the fashion industry. It’s not necessarily that AI is bad,” Lu said. “The problem is the essence of Shein’s particular business model.”
Other major brands ship items overseas in bulk, prefer ocean shipping for its lower cost, and have suppliers and warehouses in a large number of countries, which cuts down on the distances that items need to travel to consumers.
According to the company’s sustainability report, 38 percent of Shein’s climate footprint comes from transportation between its facilities and to customers, and another 61 percent come from other parts of its supply chain. Although the company is based in Singapore and has suppliers in a handful of countries, the majority of its garments are produced in China and are mailed out by air in individually addressed packages to customers. In July, the company sent about 900,000 of these to the U.S. every day.
A group of activists protesting during Black Friday in Barcelona, Spain, in November 2023. Marc Asensio / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Shein’s spokesperson told Grist that the company is developing a decarbonization roadmap to address the footprint of its supply chain. Recently, the company has increased the amount of inventory it keeps stored in U.S. warehouses, allowing it to offer American customers quicker delivery times, and increased its use of cargo ships, which are more carbon efficient than cargo planes.
“Controlling the carbon emissions in the fashion industry is a really complex process,” Lu said, adding that many brands use AI to make their operations more efficient. “It really depends on how you use AI.”
There is research that indicates using certain AI technologies could help companies become more sustainable. “It’s the missing piece,” said Shahriar Akter, an associate dean of business and law at the University of Wollongong in Australia. In May, Akter and his colleagues published a study finding that when fast fashion suppliers used AI data management software to comply with big brands’ sustainability goals, those companies were more profitable and emitted less. A key use of this technology, Atker says, is to closely monitor environmental impacts, such as pollution and emissions. “This kind of tracking was not available before AI based tools,” he said.
Shein didn’t reply to a request for comment on whether it uses machine learning data management software to track emissions, which is one of the uses of AI included in Akter’s study. But the company’s much-touted usage of machine-learning software to predict demand and reduce waste is another of the uses of AI included in the research.
Regardless, the company has a long way to go before meeting its goals. Grist calculated that the emissions Shein reportedly saved in 2023 — with measures such as providing its suppliers with solar panels and opting for ocean shipping — amounted to about 3 percent of the company’s total carbon emissions for the year.
Lenier, from Sustainable and Just Future, believes there is no ethical use of AI in the fast fashion industry. She said that the largely unregulated technology allows brands to intensify their harmful impacts on workers and the environment. “The folks who work in fast fashion factories are now under an incredible amount of pressure to turn out even more, even faster,” she said.
Lenier and Lu both believe that the key to a more sustainable fashion industry is convincing customers to buy less. Lu said if companies use AI to boost their sales without changing to their unsustainable practices, their climate footprints will also grow accordingly. “It’s the overall effect of being able to offer more market-popular items and encourage consumers to purchase more than in the past,” he said. “Of course, the overall carbon impact will be higher.”
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Gwen Christon runs an IGA grocery store in Isom, a town in eastern Kentucky that struggles with exorbitant utility bills and few grocery options. Climate change is worsening both problems. When the state’s record flood of 2022 devastated her supermarket, the town became a food desert as she scrambled to reopen. She soon turned to a small, local financial institution called the Mountain Association for help. With its support, the store, a steadfast community institution since it opened in 1973, found funding for rooftop solar, and more efficient coolers, heating, and air conditioning. Those improvements saved Christon enough on her power bills to reopen — and hire 10 additional employees.
“They’re reaping the benefits of reduced energy costs, so that they can reinvest back into their businesses and continue to grow their workforce [and] provide lower-cost groceries,” said Robin Gabbard, president of the Mountain Association.
The organization Gabbard leads is a community development financial institution, or CDFI, one in a network of small local lenders across Appalachia and the country that provide small loans to entrepreneurs and homeowners in rural and low-income areas.
Thanks to $500 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, a new initiative called the Green Bank for Rural America could help channel money to nonprofit lenders like the Mountain Association to support community solar arrays, apprenticeships in renewable energy fields, electrified public transit, and other projects. The program will link over 75 rural CDFIs, with priority given to those in the Appalachian mountain region. It is part of the EPA’S $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund created to support financial organizations with a history of deep community relationships and investment in local projects.
“CDFIs kind of serve as the on-ramp for communities, and banks are on the highway,” said Donna Gambrell, president of Appalachian Community Capital, or ACC. The firm, established by the Appalachian Regional Commission, raises and distributes funds for community development financial institutions throughout low-income rural communities in Appalachia.
The funding awarded to ACC will help it provide more assistance to its small lender network. The steering committee for the Green Bank includes institutions from across Appalachia, including CommunityWorks Carolina, Grow America, and Coalfield Development. These funds are meant to jumpstart future private investment, with Gambrell estimating that ACC’s award will leverage $1.6 billion in private investment. The bank will prioritize the Appalachian region’s 582 counties and serve other swaths of rural America, particularly low-income areas, communities of color, and energy communities transitioning away from fossil fuel production.
The Green Bank for Rural America is intended to raise the lending capacity of organizations like Mountain Association and expand investment in all phases of the energy transition and climate resilience. Particular areas of focus include workforce training, renewable energy storage, electric transit, home energy efficiency, and disaster relief. The money will support work that many areas have been doing for a long time, Gabbard said.
CDFIs have historical roots in the 19th century, as Black and immigrant business owners, denied loans by white-owned banks, developed their own financial institutions. The Treasury Department formally recognized them in 1994 when it established the CDFI Fund. Now there are over 1,000 across the country, supporting projects that otherwise might not get financed.
The green banking movement began as a way to finance small clean energy projects, but it’s taken some time to attain national recognition. Since 2009, legislators from across the country have championed the creation of a national Green Bank seeded with public funding, in order to jumpstart potentially costly but essential renewable energy infrastructure at the smallest level. In August, the first nationwide green bank — the Coalition for Green Capital — launched with $5.1 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act.
It is one of more than a dozen green banks across the country. Such institutions underwrite residential solar and energy efficiency upgrades, deployment of alternative fuel vehicles, and other small-scale climate solutions. The Connecticut Green Bank estimates that it has prevented the emission of 11 million tons of carbon dioxide since its founding in 2011.
Jason Spicer, an assistant professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College at CUNY, has for many years studied the impact of CDFIs in Appalachia. These projects, Spicer says, address financial inequalities at a small scale, but it can be difficult for them to change the underlying conditions that foster inequality. Place-based investments don’t always change structural problems, particularly in a region spanning so vast a geographical area and containing so many economies and material circumstances.
“There has long been tremendous amounts of investment into Appalachia,” Spicer said. “The problem is by whom and for what purpose.” As absentee landowners — coal companies, timber companies, speculators — invested in resource extraction, the wealth generated by these resources left the region, enriching the already wealthy.
“What are the models that ensure this wealth can be retained locally?” Spicer asked, suggesting that cooperative ownership and worker ownership may lead to a more equitable distribution of resources. One challenge of making the energy transition change financial relationships between capital and low-income communities is the scale of the needed transformation; $500 million, Spicer said, could help small lenders scale up, since the bureaucracy involved in microloans is often prohibitive for small lenders in low-income areas. The Green Bank could help bridge the gap by providing resources where they’re needed most.
“A benefit of the CDFI system in theory is that it’s targeting the places most in need,” Spicer said. “In theory, you’re not seeing this go to the strongest counties in the region, right?”
Gambrell said that’s exactly the goal. “We wanted to make sure that these were high impact projects, green projects, renewable energy projects that were in low wealth rural communities,” she said. “The projects themselves would help create jobs that stay in hard hit communities.”
Australian commercial property insurers have been forced to cover declared ‘terrorist incidents’, and some insurance customers are asking whether they’re being gouged by the terrorism levy. Zacharias Szumer investigates.
Are you a commercial property owner in a regional city like Toowoomba or Bendigo kept up at night by the prospect that the Islamic State (IS) group might target your bakery or op shop? If so, your insomnia has probably worsened since the federal government raised the national terrorism threat level from ‘possible’ to ‘probable’.
Well, MWM is here to reassure you that – even if Isis takes issue with your sacrilegious pasties or plants a bomb beneath the blouse rack – your insurer may have to cover you for any damage they do.
That’s because they have to. And there’s also a $14 billion pool of Commonwealth money, which hasn’t been drawn on in 20 years, sitting there to help them pay you out.
Since the pool was set up, there’s only been one declared ‘terrorist incident’, but the Commonwealth didn’t have to chip in to help private insurers.
Terrorism insurance premiums
MWM has talked to one commercial property owner who said he didn’t know anything about terrorism insurance until he looked below the line in his insurance policies.
The property owner – who we’ll call Alex – has shown MWM some of his insurance policy documents, according to which insurers are either collecting hundreds of dollars in terrorism levies from him each year or just not disclosing how much they’re collecting.
The 2024-2025 premium on one of Alex’s properties was $14,700, of which $900 was a terrorism levy. His insurer is AIG Australia and the policy covers public and product liability and fire and other events.
(We have slightly rounded the figures to protect Alex’s privacy.)
In a previous year, the same property was covered by Allianz, and Alex’s premium was around $13,000. However, the below-the-line breakdown doesn’t give a dollar figure for the terrorism levy component.
It simply says that this policy, or part of it, is a policy “to which the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 applies” and that Allianz “may elect” to reinsure part of its liability with the federal government’s reinsurance corporation, the ARPC (more on that later).
“As a consequence, we may be required to pay a premium to ARPC, and that amount (together with the cost of that part of the cover provided by Us and administrative costs associated with the legislation) is reflected in the premium charged to you.”
What charges, who benefits?
MWM reached out to Allianz to pass on Alex’s question about why it didn’t include terrorism levy figures as AIG does.
“Business packages can cover a broad range of different business activities and circumstances, particularly, the coverage of property that could be covered by the Terrorism Pool,” an Allianz spokesperson said.
“If Allianz did ‘elect’ to reinsure policy under the Act, the amount of the applicable levy would be shown on the policy schedule.”
Alex said he’s reached out to his insurance broker to demand all his insurers pass on information about how large their terrorism levy is but hasn’t received any information so far.
“The punters are getting screwed … why don’t I have the option to opt out?” he questioned, adding that this would make it possible for him to lower the rent for his tenants,
We’re in a part of Australia where there’s “Buckley’s chance” of a terror attack.
MWM media reached out to AIG to ask whether customers can request to be excluded from paying a terrorism levy but received no response before publication.
In the event of a ministerially declared ‘terrorist incident’, these private insurers would be forced to make payouts, thanks to legislation passed in 2003.
The Terrorism Insurance Act was passed in response to a perceived market failure in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, which “resulted in global reinsurers refusing to underwrite commercial property damage caused by acts of terror.”
The legislation “overrides “terrorism exclusion clauses in eligible insurance contracts”, which encourages insurers “to seek reinsurance”, a 2021 review of the scheme reads.
Because there wasn’t much of a private reinsurance market for terrorism, the government set up the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation (ARPC).
Source: ARPC
The ARPC – which provides terrorism reinsurance cover for Australian commercial and high-value residential property – “is intended to be a temporary measure to allow the re-emergence of an adequate private reinsurance market for terrorism risk”, the 2021 review says.
In 2022-2023, the most recent financial year for which figures are available, the ARPC’s terrorism pool collected $359 million in premium revenue.
It now has a $14.4 billion dollar pool available to cover insurers in the event of a ministerial direction that a declared ‘terrorist incident’ has occurred.
The Lindt café siege
Recent events, such as the Sydney church stabbing – which NSW Police declared to be an act of terrorism – were not declared to be ‘terrorist incidents’ for insurance purposes by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones.
Since 2003, the ARPC has not had to make a single payout.
However, in its absence, “there would likely be a market failure in the terrorism insurance market with wider economic implications,” the 2021 review argued.
When then treasurer Joe Hockey made this declaration, any terrorism exclusion clauses in the insurance policies of affected businesses were rendered void.
However, insured losses from the incident – $2.3 million over 20 insurers – were “well short of the limit at which the Commonwealth may become liable for payments.”
A screengrab from Monday, Dec. 14, at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place, Sydney. (AAP Image/Seven News)
Are insurers passing on ARPC rates?
The ARPC charges reinsurance fees based on the geographic location of insured properties.
Tier A properties – those in major CBD areas of Australian cities – attract 16% of an insurer’s gross base premium.
Tier B properties – those in urban areas, including capital city suburbs and places like Newcastle, Cairns and the Gold Coast – are charged 5.3% of an insurer’s gross base premium.
There’s also a Tier C, covering everything that isn’t Tier A or B.
This tiered system was presumably instituted because it would be too difficult to draw clear lines about where terrorism is and isn’t going to occur, and thus totally exclude those areas where there’s “Buckley’s chance”, as Alex put it.
Alex’s properties are Tier B, and AIG is seemingly passing on to Alex the ARPC’s rate, give or take a few decimal percentage points – $900 is roughly 6.1% of $14,700. In the previous year, and at a different property, the terrorism levy made up about 6% of his AIG policy.
MWM asked AIG whether it just passed on ARPC rates but, as mentioned above, we didn’t hear back. The Allianz spokesperson said, “Allianz would simply add the levy set by the ARPC in the same way it adds other government levies such as State Stamp Duty and GST. No other charges are added.”
The ARPC has issued a statement saying that it “notes” the recent raising of the national terrorism threat level but hasn’t clarified what effect that might have on premiums.
MWM understands that the next review of the ARPC’s founding legislation will occur in 2025.
While Sportsbet cajoles the government into weak policy on gambling ads, it is also betting big on tax-dodging and shonky accounting. Wally the Accountant investigates a GST scam.
Sportsbet is a multinational online gaming business that plays by its own rules – win-at-all-costs, whether it entails grooming children with gambling ads or grooming regulators and politicians to ignore its accounting and tax scams.
Something as simple as accounting for the goods and services tax (GST) in accordance with Australian Accounting Standards is not one of Sportsbet’s own rules. Compliance with the standards it seems is too much to ask of Sportsbet and its audit firm, KPMG.
Sportsbet has inflated its income, or revenue, by including GST collections. Overstating revenues by including the GST carries the aroma of accounting fraud.
Many people in Australia, and most definitely Sportsbet and KPMG, ought to know that the GST is a tax that is collected by businesses from customers for remittance to the Australian Taxation Office. GST does not, and has never had, the character of income or revenue of the business.
The GST included in Sportsbet’s revenue is significant. In its 2023 financial statements, Paddy Power Australia (the head company) disclosed net wagering revenue of $2.18 billion. One eleventh of this amount, around $198.5 million, is GST collected from customers on gambling. In its 2022 financial statements, Paddy Power Australia reported net wagering revenue of $2.24 billion including around $204 million of GST.
The Standards are clear
Paddy Power Australia and KPMG should make themselves familiar with two pronouncements that are freely available on the website of the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB).
The second pronouncement is AASB 1048 Interpretation of Standards. Paragraph 8 of this pronouncement makes it crystal clear that Interpretation 1031 is mandatory for entities that prepare ‘general purpose’ financial statements under the Corporations Act, for example, Paddy Power Australia Pty Ltd.
Falsifying revenue by including GST is not Paddy Power Australia’s first ride at the shonky accounting rodeo, and it probably won’t be the last.
As previously reported by Michael West Media, Paddy Power Australia created $1 billion of share capital in its 2020 financial statements by recognising a fantastical $1.1 billion of goodwill from the acquisition of BetEasy. This share capital fraud will allow Paddy Power Australia to avoid tax on future distributions made to its sole shareholder in the Netherlands.
The cash flow statement of Paddy Power Australia for 2023 points to a contempt for the Australian Accounting Standards Board. Cash flows from financing activities includes “Payment of Related Party Transactions” amounting to $184.9 million. This does not qualify as separate disclosure of cash flows arising from financing activities as required by paragraph 17 of AASB 107 Statement of Cash Flows. For what exactly is that cash payment?
The bad news is that ASIC is responsible for enforcing Australian Accounting Standards against multinational companies. In July 2024, a Parliamentary Committee released a report that describes ASIC as a regulator that has not just failed, but comprehensively failed.
ASIC has a long record of failing, of seeing nothing and doing nothing, when it comes to multinational financial statements. Its inactivity is a shame for the country because accounting fraud by multinationals facilities their tax fraud. Australia’s tax base is eroded, and this translates into fewer resources for schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure.
The huck of the Irish
Paddy Power Australia appears to be getting value for money from its auditor KPMG even if Australia isn’t. KPMG provided a clean audit opinion for their 2023 financial statements. They charged fees of $1.07 million for the audit and review of financial reports – an increase of $0.75 million over the $0.32 million charged for 2022.
Sportsbet is a poor corporate citizen. Socially responsible business practices are simply not part of the culture. This is precisely the sort of multinational enterprise that needs to be reined in by regulation and regulators instead of being mollycoddled by political negotiations with lobbyists.
Grooming
In June 2023, a Parliamentary Committee released a report into online gambling and gambling advertising entitled You win some, you lose more. This report includes three humdinger statements.
Firstly, gambling advertising [i.e. Sportsbet] is grooming children and young people to gamble.
Secondly, online gambling [i.e. Sportsbet] wreaks havoc in our communities, especially on our children, with its saturation advertising.
Thirdly, online gambling [i.e. Sportsbet) has a business model of encouraging harm by shunning gamblers who win and targeting gamblers who lose so that they will lose even more.
Twelve months after the report, or another year of grooming children later, the Albanese Government is still weighing up what to do about Sportsbet’s advertising.
The reasons for the delay are unclear. Is it Sportsbet’s political donations of $110 000 to the Australian Labor Party for 2022/23?
The ALP might be suckers for Sportsbet and its grifting ways but most Australians are not. So, Albo please protect Australian children from being groomed by Sporstbet’s advertising by introducing a complete ban on that advertising as soon as practicable. And Albo, please ensure Paddy Power Australia is not allowed to commit accounting fraud and is forced to comply with Australian Accounting Standards.
If you’re considering purchasing a new gadget — whether that’s a laptop, a video game console, or a digital camera — you might expect to have access to whatever repair manuals or spare parts the manufacturer produces. But until recently, companies selling electronic devices in the U.S. were under no obligation to provide their customers with the parts or information needed to perform even simple repairs, like replacing a battery.
Last December, New York became the first state in the country to require that electronic device manufacturers make their repair materials available to the public, when the state’s digital “right-to-repair” law — the first such law in the country — went into effect. In July, similar laws in Minnesota and California became enforceable. Over the next two years, consumers in Oregon and Colorado will also be granted the legal right to repair a vast array of digital electronic devices.
Repair advocates say these laws are a critical step toward ending our culture of digital disposability, in which electronics are simply replaced when broken. Discarded gadgets are usually destined to become toxic e-waste, and manufacturing new ones drives environmentally destructive mining and generates carbon emissions and other pollution.
But these right-to-repair laws are brand new, and whether manufacturers across the wide range of affected industries will overhaul their repair practices overnight remains to be seen. Repair advocates are watching tech companies in these states closely, as are the state attorneys general tasked with enforcing the law.
Many manufacturers are still “ostrich head in the sand” when it comes to the right to repair, said Kyle Wiens, CEO of the repair guide site iFixit. “There’s lots of companies that have not thought about this,” Wiens added.
A recent report by the U.S. Public Research Interest Group, or PIRG, a leading advocate for the right to repair, underscores just how far apart different industries are in their repair journeys.
The report identified 21 devices covered by New York’s new right-to-repair law, which requires electronics makers to publicly release any proprietary parts, tools, and manuals needed to repair any devices first sold in the state on or after July 1, 2023. After the law went into effect, PIRG graded each of these devices based on the accessibility and quality of repair manuals, the number of spare parts the manufacturer offers, and the availability of commonly replaced parts like batteries.
A user wears a Meta Quest virtual reality headset at a technology show in Paris, France.
Chesnot / Getty Images
In general, the report found that smartphone makers provided the most comprehensive repair materials. Laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles were a mixed bag, while the digital cameras and VR headsets surveyed scored poorly. The authors were unable to access repair manuals for recent Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, or Canon digital cameras, while Apple didn’t offer any manuals or spare parts for its new VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro. Meta’s new Meta Quest 3 VR headset also lacks a repair manual, and spare parts offerings are very limited, the report found.
Grist was unable to locate a press contact at Canon, and an email to the company’s investor relations department went unanswered. A representative of Fujifilm North America told Grist in an email that the company’s technical service team “will provide diagnosis verification and self-repair support consistent with applicable Right to Repair requirements.”Media representatives at Nikon, Apple, and Meta didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment on the report’s findings.
A representative of Sony Electronics told Grist that the company has published around 300 service manuals “and we are in the process of releasing more.” The representative shared a link to the service manual for the Alpha 6700 camera, which PIRG researchers were unable to locate through a web search when they evaluated the camera a few months ago. Report co-author Nathan Proctor told Grist that Sony’s customer service division suggested the researchers check YouTube or iFixit for repair information. That speaks to a broader problem, he said.
“Even companies that are complying, their customer service people … haven’t gotten the message,” Proctor told Grist. “To me that’s a very frustrating state of affairs.”
Proctor emphasized that the findings aren’t a definitive analysis of whether a product is or isn’t in compliance with the law, which contains “a bunch of loopholes,” he said. (Chief among those loopholes: If a company doesn’t offer any repair support to begin with, it’s under no legal obligation to start — in New York or any other state.) Rather, Proctor said, the intent was to show whether manufacturers are complying with the spirit of the law by taking steps to ensure everyone can fix the stuff they own.
Digital cameras and lenses are displayed in the Canon booth at a trade show in Yokohama, Japan.
Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images
“The purpose of this is to kind of signal to manufacturers that someone is going to be paying attention,” Proctor said. “And that they should organize their plans for compliance.”
Preparing for a repairable future will only become more important as newer, and stronger, state laws enter force. The Minnesota and California right-to-repair laws that went into effect on July 1 cover devices going back to 2021. They also include some electronics that got a carveout in New York, such as e-bikes and, in Minnesota’s case, business computers. (However, both states’ laws exclude gaming consoles, which New York’s law covers.)
Meanwhile, right-to-repair laws passed in Oregon and Colorado earlier this year take effect in January 2025 and 2026, respectively. These laws close one big outstanding loophole: Both ban parts pairing, the practice of serializing parts and using software to sync them with specific devices during repair. While some companies, like Apple, claim that the practice is vital for ensuring security and optimal performance after a device is repaired, critics say parts pairing allows manufacturers to unfairly restrict which spare parts can be used to complete a repair job. For instance, in order for a replacement iPhone screen to function properly, the screen must be purchased from Apple and paired using the company’s proprietary software tools.
Apple lobbied against outlawing parts pairing in both Oregon and Colorado. Having lost that battle, the company is now taking steps to open up its parts pairing system, including allowing customers to pair used Apple parts with certain iPhone models. An Apple representative declined to say which iPhone models will be affected by the change, or whether the company plans to extend this less-restrictive pairing process to other devices, like MacBook laptops.
In addition to outlawing parts pairing, the Oregon law will retroactively apply to most electronic devices going back to 2015, the longest coverage period yet.
Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, a trade association representing repair businesses, said it was too early to tell which devices or companies might be out of compliance with the new laws. To answer that question, The Repair Association is in the process of collecting data from its members on numerous products they’re trying to fix and the challenges they’re facing. “We’re expecting there will be lots of holes, we just don’t have any information on where the holes are yet,” she said.
Once those holes are visible, advocates, repair workers, and the public can start pointing them out to state attorneys general, who can file suits against companies that are out of compliance with the law. None of the states with an active digital right-to-repair law has brought a public action against a company yet, but the offices of the attorneys general of California and Minnesota told Grist they are committed to enforcing the law. (The New York attorney general’s office declined to comment on the record.)
If a state determines that a company is in violation of its right-to-repair law, that company could face fines — ranging from $500 per violation in New York to $20,000 per violation in Minnesota.
Whether these penalties are substantial enough to convince tech companies worth trillions of dollars to course correct on repair remains to be seen. But both Gordon-Byrne and Wiens, of iFixit, see an even stronger incentive for companies to follow the law: The embarrassment of being forced to pay the public back for selling unfixable stuff.
“I think the public reputational risks are as significant as the fines,” Wiens said.
In order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, scientists agree that the world needs to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury. How to get there is a more contentious question.
So far, the dominant strategy has been for companies, governments, and other institutions to set their own emissions reduction targets. The idea is that if everyone aims for net-zero by 2050 and comes reasonably close to achieving it, the world will be spared a climate nightmare.
This strategy has only worked to a limited extent — especially in the private sector. More than half of the world’s 2,000 largest publicly listed companies don’t even have a formal net-zero goal, and only 4 percent of those that do meet a United Nations initiative’s baseline criteria for reliability. Companies often rely on questionable accounting or otherwise exaggerate their progress toward climate targets, despite the emergence of several independent standard-setting bodies and verification schemes.
Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, a Swedish organization that advocates for corporate emissions reductions, are now calling for a different approach — one that can effect change on a more systemic level. In a research paper published last week in the journal Carbon Management, they argue for an additional corporate climate reporting system that incentivizes other forms of action, like lobbying for national climate policies and investing in conservation projects.
“We have been leaving a huge amount of impact on the table by failing to encourage or invite companies to be rewarded and compared for their significant efforts beyond their value chain,” said Kaya Axelsson, a research fellow at Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and a co-author of the paper.
She said those rewards could take a number of forms, including interest from consumers or investors, or preferential treatment for government contracts.
Axelsson and her co-authors are by no means the first to criticize existing corporate carbon accounting practices. Over the past several years, academics, think tanks, and even government agencies have suggested ways to boost transparency and make companies’ net-zero pledges easier to compare. Standard-setters themselves have also sought stakeholder feedback to address widely acknowledged problems. Few experts, however, have called for an entirely new set of accounting standards.
Under the researchers’ proposal, companies would set targets and track progress toward three “spheres of influence,” related to categories they call “product power,” “purchasing power,” and “political power.”
This is in contrast to today’s most prevalent climate reporting regime, in which companies tally up the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their own operations, the electricity they buy, and the products they sell to customers — known as Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, respectively. These scopes are collectively described as a company’s greenhouse gas inventory.
An aerial view shows the forest in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka, in April of this year. Thilna Kaluthotage / NurPhoto
The authors’ first proposed sphere of influence, product power, would consider emissions avoided as a result of a company’s new products or practices, compared to a world in which those products or practices didn’t exist. The authors say this could incentivize companies to decarbonize all of society, rather than simply increase the efficiency of their existing products and supply chains.
This gets at a problem that might be faced by, say, a fast-growing renewable energy company. Under the scope-based standards, the company would be penalized for the greenhouse gas emissions it emits when it manufactures wind turbines. But those turbines might be used to displace another company’s fossil fuel use, providing a societal climate benefit. The renewable energy company should be recognized for this contribution to the greater good, Axelsson said.
The second sphere, political power, would recognize the role companies play in shaping local, national, or international regulations, and incentivize them to advocate for climate action, rather than against it. This reflects the guidance of an expert panel of the United Nations, which said in a 2022 report that corporate actors “must align their external policy and engagement efforts, including membership in trade associations, to the goal of reaching net-zero by 2050.”
The goal wouldn’t necessarily be to quantify the impact of companies’ political lobbying, the paper clarifies, but to acknowledge and reward it: “A company taking significant steps to change a political system constraining climate progress across its sector should arguably be treated preferentially to a company with the same inventory emissions who has chosen not to engage in political processes.”
Perhaps most significantly, the researchers’ third proposed sphere, on purchasing power, would address a divisive question: whether activities to drive down emissions outside a company’s operations and supply chain can somehow count toward that company’s climate targets. Today, many companies say yes — they participate in an unregulated carbon market in which credits representing some amount of sequestered or prevented carbon dioxide can be purchased in order to “offset” a company’s Scope 1, 2, or 3 greenhouse gas emissions. These credits are typically generated by activities like planting trees, investing in renewable energy to replace fossil fuels, or protecting forests that are in danger of being chopped down.
Scientists say this approach is flawed for a number of reasons, including because it implies an inaccurate equivalence between a ton of carbon emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels and a ton of carbon stored in biological systems. Research has shown that the two don’t have an equal and opposite effect on the climate system. Carbon offsets can also give companies an excuse not to reduce their own emissions.
That said, credit-generating activities themselves can actually be helpful; it’s their use as offsets that’s problematic. The purchasing power approach would track companies’ support for these activities separately from their greenhouse gas inventories, giving them an incentive to continue that support without the contentious math associated with offsetting. This is similar to the idea of “contribution claims,” in which companies simply advertise their financial contribution to renewable energy projects, grid resilience, afforestation, and other climate action, without making any claims about the amount of carbon saved.
“Projects which serve to protect nature or enable clean development still play a role, if imperfect, in global mitigation and adaptation efforts,” the paper says. “When a company uses its purchasing power in this way it goes above and beyond another company that has not done so.”
Doreen Stabinsky, a professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Maine who was not involved in the research paper, said the new proposal could address flaws in current climate reporting systems. But she questioned the premise that corporations will be sufficiently motivated to address climate change just because doing so would appeal to consumers and investors.
“I agree that there’s a problem with a myopic focus on inventory emissions, and I agree that you need to have innovative strategies that operate at a system level,” she said. “But I’m critical of thinking that it’s up to individual companies to innovate those system-level strategies.”
She said the researchers’ proposal focuses too much on improvements to the market system and overlooks governments’ responsibility to oversee society-wide decarbonization. “There are things that we’re not going to be able to make happen through these market-based approaches,” she added.
Axelsson told Grist she sees voluntary standards as “a necessary but insufficient tool for corporate climate accountability,” and said they can be a stepping stone to government policies.
“Standards can be a good regulatory sandbox for testing new ways of thinking about concepts holistically,” she added. “If net-zero is at a turning point where we’re asking companies not just about their footprint but also about their impact, we probably need to test that in a voluntary space and then hopefully governments can start seeing that that’s something that they can ask for.”
“We’re taking things from the people of the future now,” Mary Heath says from the kitchen where she’s drying seeds to plant. The climate activist is talking about Earth Overshoot Day, the ominous annual milestone that marks when humanity has consumed more from the Earth than the Earth can replenish in a year.
In this Q&A, Catherine Fox discusses her new book, Breaking the Boss Bias, with BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman. Fox highlights the urgent need for gender equity in leadership. She addresses the stagnation of women in power roles and the systemic barriers they face, while emphasising the importance of diverse leadership styles. She offers hope and insight into how we can work together to create a more equitable future.
Why did you see the need to write your book “Breaking the Boss Bias”? What was the urgency, in your view?
I was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards particularly in critical decision making roles. There is still only a handful of women running governments worldwide, in powerful CEO jobs, and they are lucky to make up 30% of senior ranks.
Even though there are more women in Australia’s federal parliament and in cabinet, men are over-represented in many influential roles across party lines and in the bureaucracy. The Global Economic Forum tracks leadership progress which has increased about 1% a year until last year when it went backwards. Yet instead of taking this seriously many signs suggest organisations are taking their eye off the ball or lapsing into complacency.
Let’s address the basics first. Why does it matter how many women are in charge? Some might argue it doesn’t actually help women at the other end of the scale – those in low-paid jobs like childcare or cleaning roles. How would you respond to that?
It does matter. Aside from being fundamentally unfair to marginalise half the population of a well-educated country from power jobs, the evidence shows it makes a difference to outcomes for all women.
When women run governments there’s usually more chance of gender legislation getting passed (I interviewed UTS law academic Ramona Vijeyarasa about this which was the focus of her book, (The Woman President: Leadership, Law and Legacy for Women’), the gender pay gap narrows and more women progress.
Not to mention that when there are more women on decision making bodies (not just one but two or more) the nature and scope of the discussion changes and so do the priorities. It’s not because women wave a magic wand or are ‘better’ than men. But they bring different experience and focus to the table, they are role models and their presence encourages more efforts to close the gap. Many also realise they have a vested interest in seeing things change.
Join Catherine in conversation with Professor Michelle Ryan about her new book ‘Breaking the Boss Bias’ at the ANU in Canberra. Tue 27 Aug 2024, 6:30 pm-7:30 pm. Register for the event here.
You argue there’s a lot of talk about female leadership, but the numbers of women in those roles remains stubbornly low. Arguably the data you set out actually points to a decline. Why is this?
Power systems are very good at recycling themselves and so the cohort in charge has minimised the problem, or pointed to examples of women in top jobs as proof there is plenty of momentum underway. This is often accompanied by gender washing – painting a much rosier picture than the reality particularly with tokenism like celebrations of International Women’s Day.
This over-optimistic and compliance driven messaging has been disturbingly successful – not just in organisations but across society (nearly 60% of Australians think we are near or already have gender equity according to 2023 Gender Compass research). It’s supported by claiming workplaces are meritocracies, pointing to limited examples of change, misleading statistics (‘half our employees are women’) and corporate value statements as credentials.
But this is becoming increasingly risky. Some of Australia’s largest employers had significant gender pay gaps which were published for the first time earlier this year. The data showed that despite the rhetoric, men dominated higher paid senior jobs from banks to retailers and supermarkets. Far from solving the problem, there’s been lots of convenient denial and very little effective action.
Why are women generally given “glass cliff” leadership positions where the likelihood of them succeeding is extremely low?
There’s a lot of glass cliffs about – I think Qantas may be an example with constant pressure on Vanessa Hudson to turn around the damage done to the brand in very difficult circumstances. QU academic Alex Haslam, who was one of the original glass cliff researchers (with Michelle Ryan, now the head of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at ANU) described the dynamic as a line of potential male candidates looking at the mess they would be inheriting and all taking a step back leaving the only woman contender in the hot seat – a last resort choice.
Happens in politics often – former PMs Julia Gillard and Theresa May are examples. Stereotypes about women being good at tidying up a mess and settling things down also tend to play into this dynamic. When women then struggle in these tricky situations they also get less time to prove themselves – women CEOs have a much shorter tenure on average than men.
Author Catherine Fox says she “…was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards.” Picture: Shurtterstock
What structural issues still prevent or act as barriers for women aspiring to leadership?
Many workplaces reward employees who can work set hours over continuous years without breaks and accrue experience to then progress. This clearly penalises care givers who are mostly women and this burden hasn’t shifted much, while caring carries a stigma too. Men who take parenting leave are also now finding they are judged as less serious workers and less likely to progress.
Most of the accepted leadership models have a masculine skills held up as models are overtly masculine, inaccessible and expensive childcare is a massive deterrent to women’s workforce participation and hours, while superannuation is still structured around a primary earner with unbroken tenure.
On top of this set of issues, women from further marginalised groups – racially diverse, LGBTQ+, disabled – are facing a double whammy and are far less likely to get the same opportunities as other women or men. We don’t have
Increasingly around the world we’re’ seeing a backlash against gender equity. How does that play into the situation with female bosses? How do we tackle this?
Backlash about the ‘unfairness’ of programs supporting women means there’s more reliance on stereotypes and workplace myths about meritocracies so women are even less likely to get the opportunity to succeed. The small number of women leaders stand out and are over-scrutinised, with their failings often attributed to their gender. The bar is set much higher for women – US research looking at women leaders in four female-dominated sectors which I quoted found that women are seen as ‘never quite right’ for leadership.
The reasons include age, race, parental status and attractiveness – many of which are usually not applied to men. The excuses are used as a red herring to avoid confronting inherent gender bias and the researchers dubbed it ‘we want what you aren’t’ discrimination. Progression assessment and promotion decisions need to be carefully vetted to avoid these traps and ensure decision making is not biased consciously or unconsciously.
Cover image: Breaking the Boss Bias. Picture: Supplied
Women lead in ways that are proven to be different from men. And also proven to be more collaborative, productive and effective. How do we make way for these leadership styles to be accepted in businesses and organisations (and celebrated)?
As a management writer and journalist I saw much lip service paid to a more collaborative style of leadership (which is also peddled by many management consultants). But the reality is a heroic, masculine, command and control style is still common in many workplaces, and reflected in business media profiles and even in case studies used in business schools where 90% feature male leaders (as I examined in the book).
I don’t think women are naturally more and men less collaborative but women are encouraged to be collegiate and likeable and penalised if they are not. I think the only way to broaden the idea of successful leading has to be intentionally elevating evidence showing different leadership examples. For years I heard that a new generation of younger leaders would change the dynamics of what leadership looks like, particularly in sectors such as IT, but in fact it has barely shifted.
That’s why we need more women in decision making to show a different approach and keep up pressure to shift the parameters – such as former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who spoke about kindness as a strength.
Is there anything else you want to say?
So much. But there’s plenty more in the book about what we can all do to break the bias and see fairer outcomes right now.
The companies and individuals linked to the owners of now-defunct Bonza Airlines are part of a complex global web used to whitewash billions of dollars. Matt Prescott with the investigation.
Bonza Aviation is in administration after its owner 777 Partners, a Miami-based private equity company that owns a curious mix of airlines and leasing companies, as well as stakes in several football clubs in Europe, South America and Australia.
MWM understands that 777 Partners’ inability to continue supporting Bonza’s floundering cash flow was partly due to a failed bid for English Premier League (EPL) team Everton FC.
The failed bid for Everton FC means it’s still owned by British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri (no relation to the recently deceased Iranian artist with the same name). Moshiri was previously the chairman of USM Holdings, a Russian company with significant interests in the metals and mining, telecoms, technology, and internet sectors.
Alisher Usmanov
USM Holdings is 49% owned by an Uzbek-Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, who is reportedly one of the 100 wealthiest people in the world due to his publishing house Kommersant, mobile phone carrier (Megafon), tech company (Digital Sky Technologies (DST), later renamed Mail.ru Group, and metal interests (Udokan; copper).
(Kommersant was formerly owned by Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Originally close to Vladimir Putin, they fell out, and Berezovsky lost most of his assets, was exiled to London, and was found dead in his home in 2013 “with a ligature around his neck.”)
On 28 February 2022, the European Union (EU) blacklisted Usmanov in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Resulting in an EU-wide travel ban for him and the freezing of all his assets. On 3 March 2022, the United States imposed similar sanctions on him, with exemptions being given to some of his businesses, which authorities worried might otherwise disrupt the global economy and supply chain.
The Official Journal of the European Union described Usmanov as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin [who is] one of Vladimir Putin’s favourite oligarchs.” Usmanov lodged an appeal in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) attempting to lift the sanctions, but the appeal was dismissed on 7 February 2024.
In 1992, Usmanov married Uzbek-born Russian rhythmic gymnastics coach Irina Alexandrovna Viner, head of the Russian national gymnastics team and President of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. Viner is considered to be close to Vladimir Putin, having introduced him to former rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is reportedly Putin’s long-time romantic partner. On 4 May 2022, Usmanov filed for divorce from Viner.
Usamov’s holding of 49% of Russia’s second-largest mobile telephone operator, MegaFon, gives him significant influence in Putin’s Russia.
Mail.Ru Group (now VKontakte)
In 2007, VKontakte – a social media company – or VK as it is commonly known, was founded by Pavel Durov (20% shareholder) and a trio of Russian-Israeli investors, Yitzchak Mirilashvili (60%), Mikhael Mirilashvili (father of Yitzchak, 10%) and Lev Leviev (10%).26 VK is the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
Later the same year, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), an investment company run by Yuri Milner (a co-founder of the Breakthrough Prizes in the US with Facebook’s / Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg), acquired 24.99% of VK shares from the initial shareholders for $US16.3m. In 2010, ahead of the Initial Public Offering (IPO), the international and Russian assets of DST were separated, and the international assets became part of the DST Global fund, while the Russian assets were merged into the Mail.ru Group. By mid-2011, Mail.ru had acquired a 39.99% stake in VK, with aspirations of acquiring 100%.
Web of money and influence. (C) Matt Prescott. CLICK TO ENLARGE
In March 2012, Durov heard about negotiations involving Yitzchak Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev selling their shares in VK to Mail.ru Group’s main investor, Alisher Usmanov. At this point, Durov deleted webpages referring to the initial investors in VK and shortly afterwards postponed its IPO.
At the end of May 2012, Milner and Usmanov’s Mail.ru yielded control of VK by offering Durov the voting rights to their shares. Combined with Durov’s 12% personal stake, this gave Durov 52% of the voting rights.
Subsequently, in April 2013, the Mirilashvilis sold their 40% stake in VK to United Capital Partners (UCP), and Lev Leviev simultaneously sold his 8% to UCP, giving UCP 48% ownership of VK.
Pavel Durov then sold his 12% personal stake in VK in January 2014 to Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of Megafon, a company owned by Alisher Usmanov (see above).
The end result of these complex financial dealings was that Usmanov and his allies now controlled 52% of the company. The CEO of Megafon then sold his 12% personal stake to Mail.ru, enabling Mail.ru to take operational control of VK.
April Fools Day
On April Fool’s Day, 1 April 2014, Durov submitted his resignation from the board of VK. Later, claiming this was an April Fool’s joke, he was dismissed as CEO on 21 April, claiming that VK had been taken over by Vladimir Putin’s political faction. He then fled the country and focused his efforts on the encrypted messaging service Telegram.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that before all of the above shuffling of VK shares and voting rights, Usmanov became associated with Yuri Milner in 2008 and soon became a shareholder of DST and VK (Mail.ru Group).
Usmanov had 25.3% of the shares in VK but 60.6% of voting rights until he sold a $US530m stake in 2013, reducing his shares and voting rights to 17.9% and 58.1%, respectively. The plot thickened when, in 2013, Usmanov acquired Pavel Durov’s shares in VK.ru, to help Durov retain control of the Telegram app when UCP claimed that Telegram belonged to VK.
On September 16, 2014, the Mail.ru group bought the remaining 48% of VK from the UCP for $US1.5B, thus becoming the sole proprietor of the social network.
In December 2021, Usmanov’s USM Holding shares were sold to the Russian insurance company Sogaz and combined with a stake held by Russian state-owned Gazprombank to give a controlling interest in the company.26 Usmanov said that VK involvement has largely determined the development of USM.5
We don’t know everything that went on during the complex takeover of VK, but it is worth noting that during this period, Alisher Usmanov was involved in the takeover of VK with Kremlin loyalists via both Megafon and Mail.ru.
VKontakte has since been accused of becoming a tool for repressing opposition activists.
Social media investments
Alisher Usmanov’s importance in the world of social media, Silicon Valley, and the Big Tech industry does not end there.
In 2009, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook / Meta, turned to Russian investors at a meeting brokered by Goldman Sachs. Usmanov invested in Facebook in 2009 via Mail.ru, investing $US200m for a 1.96% stake, valuing Facebook at $US10B. One of Mark Zuckerberg’s conditions was that Usmanov give Zuckerberg his voting rights on these shares.
By the time of Facebook’s IPO, in 2012, Usmanov’s stake in Facebook was worth at least $US1.4B, a three-year return of 600%.
Digital Sky Technology (DST), which Usmanov was involved with via Yuri Milner, made an $US800m investment in Twitter in 2011.
Through Yuri Milner’s Mail.Ru Group, formerly Digital Sky Technology (DST), Usmanov also made sizeable investments in Groupon, Zynga, Airbnb, ZocDoc, Alibaba and 360buy.5,31
Usmanov also invested $US100m in Apple in 2013 before selling an unknown number of his shares in early 2014. His investment in China’s Alibaba marketplace was thought to have gone up in value by 500% by late 2014.
In September 2018, a $US2B joint venture was reportedly agreed between Mail.ru and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which would merge the online marketplaces of Mail.ru and Alibaba in the Russian market. This deal was backed by the Kremlin via the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Arsenal Football Club
Between 2007 and 2018, Alisher Usmanov was a major shareholder of the English football team Arsenal, having acquired a 14.58% stake. Usmanov and his business partner Farhad Moshiri (remember him?) bought their £75m stake from the club’s former vice-chairman David Dein. Dein was later appointed head of their investment vehicle, Red and White Holdings, which became the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors.
Red and White Holdings increased its shareholding to 23% in September 2007. This made Red and White Holdings the second-largest shareholder in the club behind a non-executive director at Arsenal, Danny Fiszman. In February 2008, this stake was increased to over 24%, just short of Fiszman’s 24.11%, and to 25% a year later.
At this stage, Red and White Holdings confirmed that it was the club’s largest shareholder, with the company saying it “has the necessary funding to increase its stake further (but) it has no current intention to make a full takeover bid for Arsenal for six months.” This was significant because once a stake reached 30%, an investor such as Red and White Holdings would have to launch a formal takeover.
As a result of Usmanov’s interest in Arsenal, a “lock-down” agreement was initiated by the Arsenal board, with the chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, announcing directors at the club could only sell their stakes to “permitted persons” prior to April 2009, and should give other board members the “first option” to buy shares until October 2012. Arsenal’s managing director, Keith Edelman, said that “The lockdown … makes us bullet-proof” (from a hostile takeover).
In April 2011, American billionaire businessman Stan Kroenke (husband of Ann Walton, a Walmart heiress), who was already a significant Arsenal shareholder, increased his stake in Arsenal to just over 62% after buying out the stakes owned by Danny Fiszman and Lady Bracewell-Smith. whose family had held Arsenal shares for several generations. This made Kroenke the majority shareholder. As a result of Kroenke’s crossing the 30% stake threshold, he was now obliged to offer to buy out the remainder of Arsenal shares. Usmanov refused to sell to Kroenke and instead held on to his stake.
Usmanov increased his Arsenal shares beyond 29% in June 2011. He then purchased shares held by the Scottish football club Rangers in February 2012. As of October 2013, he owned over 30% of the club. In August 2018, Usmanov sold his shares to Kroenke for £550m.
Everton FC
Returning to the Everton part of the narrative, in January 2017, Usamanov’s USM Holding signed a five-year deal with Everton FC for more than £15m for the naming rights of Everton’s training ground, Finch Farm.
Usmanov’s accountant and partner in USM Holdings is Farhad Moshiri, the current majority shareholder of Everton FC and former co-owner of Usmanov’s Arsenal shares via Red and White Holdings. Moshiri owns 94% of the club.
In 2019, Megafon, the Russian mobile phone company 49% owned by, became the sleeve sponsor for the men’s training wear of Everton FC and its official matchday presenting partner. They then expanded their commercial agreement with Everton in 2020 to become the main sponsor of the women’s team. Usmanov continued to provide funding for the club despite the fact that he was barred from entering the UK in 2021.
Everton suspended its sponsorship ties with USM and MegaFon in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Money laundering risk
So why does any of this matter to anyone in Australia?
The wealth generated by Russia’s immense fossil fuel exports acts as a gigantic slush fund, which then gets diversified and laundered around the world. Anyone who comes into contact, directly or indirectly, with this Russian wealth and the influence it buys is vulnerable to being sucked into a dark and dangerous world of murky deals.
Russian wealth and influence may corrupt popular culture via sport, betting, or politics, shift energy, industrial, climate, tax, and competition policies in other fossil fuel-producing countries, and even influence transport options and economic development in countries like Australia, operating independently, outside the protection of large trade blocs.
We are not suggesting that 777 Partners or Bonza Airlines have been involved in anything illegal, but we question the wisdom of Australian aviation flying so close to Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs.
Aviation and sport are significant drivers of economic development and opportunities and should be viewed as strategic industries. They deserve far more national investment and regulation, as well as insulation from malign interests seeking to shift Western popular culture and politics.
* Spot the oligarch: Top row, from left to right: Fahrad Moshiri, Alisher Usmanov, Pavel Durov and Yuri Milner. Bottom row, from left to right: Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Putin, Mark Zuckerberg and Stan Kroenke.
In 2018, a company began quietly buying up some $900 million worth of land from farmers in Solano County, California, an area just north of the Bay Area. As the parcel ballooned to more than 60,000 acres, their motivations remained a mystery — stoking unease and speculation. Then, last year, the news broke: The land was to become a brand-new eco-friendly city, backed by a roster of Silicon Valley billionaires, and built from the top-down by a company called California Forever.
The plan was launched by Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader and California Forever’s CEO. He said the project has three main goals: “Help solve the California housing crisis”; create a walkable metropolitan area with a high quality of life and low carbon footprint; and build a new “economic engine” for Solano County. “There’s no playbook here,” Sramek said. “What we are trying to do is really, really different.”
Before California Forever could break ground, their proposal, the East Solano Plan, needed approval from the people who already live in Solano County. Where Sramek envisioned growth, however, others warned of irreversible ecological damage. Despite launching a multimillion-dollar campaign to persuade the public to vote for the proposal in the upcoming November election, concerns continued to grow as elected officials began speaking out in opposition, and a coalition against the project formed. Local mistrust was further deepened by the company’s ongoing lawsuit against landowners who resisted their offers. In April, a poll showed that 70 percent of Solano’s voters would likely reject the measure.
Jan Sramek, founder and CEO for California Forever, talks to reporters after a news conference for the proposed new city in Solano County, in Rio Vista, California in January 2024.
Janie Har / AP Photo
On July 22, the day before the Solano County Board of Supervisors was set to decide whether to put the initiative on the November ballot, Sramek and the board agreed to retract the proposal. According to a joint statement announcing the decision, Sramek said that California Forever will try to get it on the ballot again in two years, after a report assessing the environmental impacts of the project is finished.
Other similarly minded and deep-pocketed projects have been springing up around the world. Masdar, a $20 billion planned zero-carbon city in the United Arab Emirates, has been delayed for decades and scaled back beyond recognition. Neom, the futuristic $500 billion renewable energy dream of Saudi Arabian royals, now anticipates less than a fifth of the 1.5 million residents they originally planned on. Malaysia’s Forest City, which won design awards for sustainability, has been called a ghost town. And the billionaire behind Diapers.com has big plans for Telosa somewhere in the deserts of the American West, a sprawling green energy metropolis.
These projects all seek to fulfill urban dreams of a better, environmentally friendly life by building a city from scratch. But even when the buildings exist, they fail to draw residents and, despite plans that emphasize sustainability, projects struggle to win the support of environmentalists. California Forever hopes to eventually house 400,000 people — goals comparable to those of Masdar or Neom.
“I have not seen one of this size which has been successful so far,” said Alain Bertaud, an urban planning researcher at the Marron Institute, part of New York University. “But that doesn’t mean that they will not be — there are so many in the pipeline now.”
Though Bertaud said he’s normally skeptical of proposals for these new cities, he thought California Forever’s plans looked well designed. One aspect that could help the project find success is its proximity to other Bay Area cities, he said, as the lure of the region’s job market might encourage people to move there.
A parcel of land recently purchased by Flannery Associates as part of plans for “California Forever” is seen near the Sacramento River near Rio Vista, California on September 15, 2023.
Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Photos
But when it comes to the project’s environmental promises, he’s unconvinced — if only because it’s difficult to measure benchmarks, like carbon emissions, until a project is up and running. “I don’t doubt the dedication of people who are fighting for sustainability,” he said, “but unless you define it in a very clear way, I’m afraid that ‘sustainability’ is a self-satisfying slogan to put on whatever idea you have.”
The question of sustainability is at the heart of California Forever’s ambition and problems alike. Both backers and skeptics want to tackle the area’s housing crisis. Eye-popping rents and home prices far exceed national averages, with single-family homes going for a median price of $1.4 million. It’s one reason why the region has the third-highest homeless population behind New York City and Los Angeles.
Instead of solving these problems with a new city, California Forever’s critics would like to see more housing built in the seven cities that already exist in Solano County. “Building housing in existing communities is one of our best climate solutions, and paving over 17,000 acres of non-irrigated farmland is not,” said Sadie Wilson, director of planning and research at the Greenbelt Alliance. The nonprofit, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Sierra Club, is one of the 16 groups in Solano Together, the coalition that opposes the project.
A person examines a map of the proposed community “California Forever” in Solano County, California during a news conference in Rio Vista, California, on Jan. 17, 2024.
Janie Har / AP Photo
Wilson says that the development threatens both the area’s potential for storing carbon in the soil and local biodiversity, and also risks leading to more pollution from people driving to work in nearby cities. And although California Forever holds water rights that could support the first 40,000 residents, Solano Together says that these don’t accurately reflect water availability. Securing a reliable supply, they argue, would be challenging in a region so prone to drought.
By starting from scratch, however, California Forever says their plans could avoid the baggage of urban problems like car-centric design and gas utilities, making it easier to support dense housing and run on renewable power. “Our plan will be the lowest per capita carbon emissions anywhere on the planet. It’s going to be pretty transformational,” said Bronson Johnson, the company’s head of infrastructure and sustainability, who added that he’s spent years grappling with barriers to retrofit existing cities. “I think when we look at the greater good of this project, that far outweighs local impacts,” Johnson said.
But the voters need convincing. After The New York Times named many of the investors behind the project — including Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn cofounder, and Michael Moritz, a prominent venture capitalist — in August 2023, California Forever began working to bring residents over to their side in time for the 2024 election. By May, the company had spent some $2 million on its campaign and gathered enough signatures to qualify their initiative for the ballot.
In weeks leading up to the Solano County board meeting in July, an economic report by the business-backed Bay Area Council touted the potential jobs and housing benefits, saying that the county could increase employment in high-earning sectors by 53 percent. Meanwhile, the company proposed putting a lagoon right in the middle of the new town, “open to everyone from Solano County.”
Five days before the meeting, the county released its own assessment that said the initiative lacked details on key issues, such as infrastructure funding, traffic impacts, and water supply. Many of these unknowns would be clarified by an environmental impact report required under California law, which the company had said it planned to conduct after residents voted. According to county officials, it was this omission, and the lack of a binding development agreement, that ultimately tanked the proposal.
“This politicized the entire project, made it difficult for us and our staff to work with them, and forced everyone in our community to take sides,” said Mitch Mashburn, chair of the Solano County Board of Supervisors, in the statement announcing that the plan would be put on hold. According to the statement, Sramek and Mashburn came to the decision together after agreeing that the timing of the proposal had become unrealistic.
“I want to acknowledge that many Solano residents are excited about Mr. Sramek’s optimism about a California that builds again. He is also right that we cannot solve our jobs, housing, and energy challenges if every project takes a decade or more to break ground,” Mashburn said in the statement.
Cattle graze on a hillside with wind farms in the background in rural Solano County, near the proposed development site of California Forever, in August 2023.
Terry Chea / AP Photo
Solano Together heralded the news as a win. Wilson said that even though an environmental impact report would clear up many of the coalition’s questions, especially around water supply, the location of the development still poses what she considers an intractable environmental problem. “It is a vibrant landscape that supports our food systems, our environment, our water systems,” she said.
Sarah Moser, an urban geography researcher at the University of McGill in Montreal, said it makes sense that sparsely populated agricultural lands and deserts are appealing for mega developments like the proposed East Solano Plan because they’ll encounter less opposition. But by building on undeveloped land, “by definition, you’re going to incur a carbon debt that you may never be able to pay off,” she said.
Although Moser thinks it’s logistically possible to build a city from scratch, she says that such projects are increasingly high risk, with unattainable goals. “You can make affordable housing, or you can make money, but you can’t do both,” Moser said, adding that California Forever’s for-profit model fits into a broader pattern of “rich people getting richer” in the urban mega developments she has studied.
And perhaps the most important ingredient necessary to successfully build a new city is the very thing that stands in the way: people.
The promise of a city built on ideals isn’t enough to fill it with people, Bertaud said. There has to be an existing community of people, culture, entertainment, and jobs that draw people there. It’s a chicken-or-egg problem unique to starting from scratch. “Why would you go to a city where there is nobody?” he said.
New Caledonia’s mothballed nickel plant in Koniambo (north of the main island of Grande Terre) has announced it has started mass sackings of some 1200 staff, despite efforts to identify a potential buyer.
Koniambo (KNS-Koniambo Nickel SAS) operations had already been mothballed after the announcement, in February, from its major financier, Anglo-Swiss giant Glencore, that it wanted out.
KNS is jointly owned by Glencore (49 percent) and New Caledonia’s Northern province (51 percent).
While making the announcement, Glencore signalled a 6-month delay in the implementation of its decision, including payment of salaries.
The same timeframe was also supposed to be used to find potential buyers for the shares owned by Glencore.
Glencore said in February that keeping its stake in KNS was no longer sustainable.
It also recalled that the plant, in more than 10 years of existence and operation, had never made a profit.
Staggering debt
Over the past decade, KNS had accumulated a staggering 13.5 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) in debt.
As the August 31 deadline looms at the end of the six-month respite, what had been the symbol of New Caledonia’s Northern province empowerment and wealth “re-balancing” of the French Pacific archipelago’s provinces is now faced with a bleak reality.
Koniambo’s wealth relies on the Tiébaghi nickel massif, believed to hold about one quarter of New Caledonia’s nickel reserves.
The Koniambo nickel operation . . . a symbol of New Caledonia’s Northern province empowerment and wealth “re-balancing” programme. Image: Glencore
Koniambo: a highly political symbol KNS was born from a political and financial deal, including France — the “Bercy Accord” signed in December 1997, just months before the political Nouméa autonomy Accord was signed in 1998.
The deal was de facto enacting the transfer of the Tiébaghi massif to New Caledonia’s Northern province and its financial arm, the Société Minière du Sud Pacifique (SMSP).
It was the financial translation of the will to restore some balance between the affluent Southern Province and the less favoured Northern Province of New Caledonia, mostly populated by the indigenous Kanak community.
Since the Koniambo project and its construction started, the new activity has had a stimulating effect on the whole region, especially in the small towns of Voh, Koné and Pouembout.
The number of local companies increased, as well as the population.
In announcing the official lay-offs on Friday, KNS still wanted to appear optimistic: “Even though we are pursuing the search process for a potential buyer, and that three groups continue to display an interest for our company, we do not have at this stage a finalised offer”, the company admitted.
“We are therefore compelled to go ahead with the collective lay-off process on economic grounds”.
‘Cold’ sleep process
Beyond August 31, only a group of about 50 workers will remain employed in maintenance work on what will then be described as “cold” sleep process.
“But the fact that three world-class groups are still in discussions show that Koniambo Nickel still represents a strong interest for potential takeovers”, an optimistic KNS vice-president Alexandre Rousseau, told public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Saturday.
On top of the wave of sackings announced by KNS, some 600 contractors relying on the plant’s activities have also lost their jobs since February.
Idle nickel transport trucks lined up on Koniambo mining site in New Caledonia. Image: RRB
Local unrest – world nickel crisis The announcement comes as New Caledonia’s economy is in a critical situation.
It has suffered a major blow, on top of an already grave financial situation.
Since May 13, violent unrest has been ongoing in New Caledonia, with a backdrop of protests against French-proposed modifications of voters’ eligibility for provincial elections, regarded by pro-independence movements as a bid to reduce the political voice of the indigenous Kanak community.
Since the riots, destruction, looting and arson began, more than 700 businesses have been destroyed, 10 people killed (eight civilians and two French gendarmes), and the overall cost of the unrest has topped 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion).
During the riots and unrest, nickel mining sites have been specifically targeted several times.
Entire nickel sector in crisis New Caledonia’s nickel industry has also been in profound turmoil over past years.
Its other two plants — in the Southern province (Prony Resources) and historic operator Société le Nickel (SLN) in Doniambo near Nouméa — owned by French mining giant Eramet — are also on the verge of collapse.
The situation comes from a world nickel market now dominated by Indonesian units, which have started to produce nickel in mass quantities and at a much lower price.
The result was a collapse of the world nickel price — it slumped by 48 per cent in 2023.
New Caledonia’s production, in this context, was also regarded as too expensive, prompting efforts for a deep reform, especially on the cost structure such as electricity.
A French assistance plan proposed in 2023 by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, including a 200 million euro (NZ$367 million) package, was declined by local authorities, who said too much was being asked by France in terms of strings attached to the massive funding loan.
The French-proposed reform also intended to diversify New Caledonia’s nickel buyers from an almost-entire reliance on Asian clients and instead turn to more European buyers, mostly car manufacturers for the purposes of production of batteries for electric cars.
Other plants on the verge of collapse As a result of the combined effects of the current situation (the ongoing riots and the pre-existing nickel crisis), Prony Resources’ operations are at a standstill.
Eramet, which in recent months had made no secret of its desire to disengage from SLN, earlier reported a net loss of some 72 million euros (NZ$133 million) for the first half of the financial year.
New Caledonia’s nickel industry is believed to employ about 25 percent of the French Pacific archipelago’s workforce.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Billions of dollars in public money are beginning to flow to seven “hydrogen hubs” around the country — regional nerve centers for a potentially clean fuel that could someday rival solar and wind and cut carbon from the atmosphere. Last week, California’s hub, a public-private partnership called ARCHES, became the first to negotiate an agreement with the Department of Energy to build out hydrogen power plants, pipelines, and other projects.
But researchers and community advocates warn that unless the federal government’s so-called hydrogen earthshot has adequate safeguards, it could worsen air pollution in vulnerable communities and aggravate a warming climate. They’re also concerned that specifics of the emerging efforts remain stubbornly secret from people who live near shovel-ready projects.
That’s true even in California, a state that has declared a commitment not only to ambitious climate goals but also to environmental justice.
“The people got left behind in this conversation,” said Fatima Abdul-Khabir, the Energy Equity Program manager at Oakland-based Greenlining Institute, an advocacy group. “It’s a massive step backwards.”
Hydrogen, a colorless, odorless gas, is the world’s most abundant chemical element. When it’s used in fuel cells or burned for energy, it generates no atmosphere-warming carbon emissions. That means it could power trucks and airplanes without spewing soot from a tailpipe or exhaust from an engine. Hydrogen could help steel plants and other heavy industries lower their carbon footprints.
A hydrogen engine on display at the technology conference CERAWeek in Houston, Texas in 2023. Chen Chen/Xinhua via Getty Images
But stripping hydrogen molecules from water or methane to use as fuel can be expensive and complicated, and if that process relies on fossil fuels, it could actually prolong climate pollution. That’s not the only health risk: When even cleanly-produced hydrogen is blended with methane and burned, it can still dirty the air with toxic byproducts that contribute to lung-irritating smog.
The nation’s hydrogen earthshot is a risky and ambitious bet. Congress created an $8 billion pot of money for the hub system. It also tucked nearly $18 billion in grants and incentives into the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill. An uncapped federal tax credit for companies that produce hydrogen energy could cost the public at least another $100 billion.
“There’s so much hype right now for hydrogen because everybody wants a piece of the pie,” said Dan Esposito, an electricity policy analyst at the nonprofit firm Energy Innovation.
To bring clean hydrogen to market as quickly as possible, the U.S. Department of Energy selected regional hubs based in part on their ability to quickly produce and find uses for clean hydrogen. The chosen hubs also must promise jobs and other community benefits that advance federal environmental justice goals.
But California’s hub, a public-private partnership called ARCHES, is rejecting rules the federal government has proposed to help guard against the risk of rising pollution from incautious hydrogen projects. Along with the six other hubs, ARCHES signed a letter that warns of “far reaching negative consequences” if the rules are made permanent.
The Biden administration has set aside billions of dollars in grants, incentives, and tax credits for companies investing in new hydrogen energy. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The position held by ARCHES is directly contrary to that of experts who say such rules are the only guarantee that this huge investment will lead to a sustainable hydrogen economy.
“What our research has shown is that if we do this wrong from the start, either the hydrogen industry will fall apart or it’s going to lose a bunch of public support or it will really significantly delay our ability to clean up the power grid,” Esposito said.
Multipleanalyses based on public data and modeling, including Esposito’s own, have concluded that hydrogen produced under the wrong circumstances could worsen air pollution instead of improving it.
So far, the message from ARCHES is: Trust us. Trust California to do what is right with the $1.2 billion it has been awarded for its hub. Trust the hub’s projects to cut carbon and lung-searing emissions from the air.
“There’s reason to trust California,” said Dan Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “But only if California continues to follow the rules that California created.”
California’s hub began as an agreement among the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, or GO-BIZ, the University of California, the state building and trades unions and a nonprofit called Renewables 100, founded by ARCHES CEO Angelina Galiteva. It has around 400 network partners, including Amazon, Cemex, Chevron and investor-owned utilities, including SoCal Gas and Edison International.
Building on the state’s development of the world’s first standard to cut the carbon intensity of fuel, ARCHES promises to develop zero-carbon hydrogen using solar, wind, biomass and other renewable sources.
“We came together to go after the federal funding, but that federal funding is just a start,” said Tyson Eckerle, a senior advisor for GO BIZ, at an environmental think tank’s conference in the spring. “It’s the pebble that launches the avalanche.”
But California argues that its progress will be slowed if hydrogen developers have to meet rules the U.S. Department of the Treasury has proposed for projects seeking the lucrative 45V tax credit.
Angelina Galiteva is CEO of California’s hydrogen hub, which is the first in the country to negotiate terms with the U.S. Department of Energy for a billion-dollar award. Courtesy of the California Hydrogen Leadership Summit
Those rules are based on what energy experts refer to as the “three pillars” of clean hydrogen production. To make hydrogen clean and sustainable, it should be produced from a new source using carbon-neutral electricity. That electricity should be geographically close to where it’s needed, so delivering it isn’t costly. It should also be available when it’s needed, not traded or obtained through accounting from another time and place.
California’s hydrogen leaders counter that the state already has a successful strategy — and numerous requirements — for getting clean energy on the grid. Complying with the federal rules would undermine that progress, ARCHES has said in a public response, making it “impossible” to integrate hydrogen “in a timely and cost-effect manner without disrupting our carefully calibrated energy system.”
“We’re at almost 60 percent, 24/7 renewables across the board, which is a huge, huge step forward. We’re ahead of our goals in terms of meeting those obligations,” Galiteva told Public Health Watch.
If these federal conditions “had been required for the nascent solar or battery or any other industry, those industries would never have taken off,” she said.
Julie McNamara, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called California’s position contradictory. Even if the state’s renewables-rich grid deserves freedom from constraining rules, why would California support a free-for-all that gives states that continue to depend on fossil fuels a pass?
“ARCHES is trying to have it both ways,” she said.
Fossil fuel-focused energy companies, including BP and Shell, have also argued for more leeway in qualifying for the federal money.
Clean hydrogen could be the angel of decarbonizing the energy sector, but Earthjustice senior research and policy analyst Sasan Saadat said that poorly defined hydrogen could be the devil, because it might prolong the use of fossil fuels.
“You’ve taken this thing that is really dangerous and muddled it up with the world of climate solutions and clean energy and that’s why it’s so risky,” Saadat said. “The fossil fuel industry knows this and they can blur the lines.”
ARCHES has prioritized 37 projects to spend its federal money, according to CEO Galiteva. This “tier one” investment reflects the hub’s vision for bringing clean hydrogen to California.
“We have another 33-plus projects … that can actually slide into a tier one project if a tier one project hits a bump on the road for any reason,” she said at a recent hydrogen trade conference in Sacramento. “So the economy and the scale is going to be pretty big once we start moving.”
There’s an incentive to move quickly: To qualify for the federal tax credit, shovels have to be in the ground by 2032.
In Los Angeles County, the Element Resources Project could be one of 37 projects granted money by California’s hub, ARCHES. The city of Lancaster’s project promises to produce hydrogen fuel with solar power. Courtesy of the City of Lancaster
But the criteria for what qualifies as tier one status aren’t public. Nor are the locations of most of ARCHES’ projects, or their potential health and environmental impacts.
To fully participate in the hub, partners had to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Environmental advocates call the NDA an “iron wall” that makes ARCHES a black box.
“This huge hydrogen thing is happening, and all anybody knows is that there’s a ton of money coming for it,” said Shana Lazerow, a lawyer with the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment.
Even where hydrogen is produced without fossil fuels, enormous questions remain about where to prioritize its production and use, so it doesn’t pollute or cost more.
“No one has found the killer app for green hydrogen yet,” UC Berkeley’s Dan Kammen said.
At Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is demolishing four red-and-white striped stacks to make way for what it says will be renewable and possibly hydrogen projects. But the facility has a history of methane leaks, and neighbors are wary of the utility’s promises. Molly Peterson/Public Health Watch
Projects that might scoop up the federal money are beginning to emerge from the shadows. In eastern Contra Costa County, where land along the Suisun Bay once served as a stopover for boats supplying gold miners, a company called H Cycle is proposing to heat municipal organic waste to transform it into hydrogen. Diverting waste from a landfill is a particularly attractive idea, since overstuffed landfills release methane into the atmosphere.
But the draft environmental impact report for the project in the small city of Pittsburg is light on details. It’s not clear exactly what will be heated or what technology will be used to unlock the hydrogen. Under California’s regulations, organic waste can include some percentage of plastic and metal, which would emit toxins when burned. The report also references slag, a waste product that comes from burning material, not just heating it.
All of that is troubling to a neighborhood whose residents are in the 93rd percentile statewide for asthma risk. Charles Davidson, a Contra Costa resident and member of the Sunflower Alliance, points out that 25,000 people live near H Cycle. “It’s burning plastics and construction materials and other things with no limit, no specifications on what’s being incinerated next to people’s homes,” he said.
A news release says H Cycle “is positioned” for a piece of ARCHES’ billion-dollar pie. But whether it’s a tier-one project for the hub isn’t clear. H Cycle, as a partner in ARCHES, has signed the hub’s non-disclosure agreement, and the company did not respond to requests for comment.
A letter local air regulators sent to Pittsburg’s planners warns of health risks from the project.
“This thermal conversion process represents a novel renewable hydrogen production strategy,” wrote the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in March. “However, it will introduce additional air pollution into a community that is already overburdened.” The district recommended more consideration of residents – and more transparency.
H Cycle’s engagement with vulnerable communities is limited at best, said Amelia Keyes, a lawyer with Communities for a Better Environment.
“It’s no coincidence that a polluting facility like this is being built here,” she said.
At launch, ARCHES highlighted 10 unnamed hydrogen production projects, “with most in the Central Valley.”
Projects are popping up in marginalized or already-polluted communities around the state. Some involve producing the fuel; others will transport or use it. Amelia Keyes said advocates usually hear about these projects by word of mouth.
“I think it really illustrates the kind of Whac-a-mole that environmental justice groups have to play with these kinds of facilities,” Keyes said.
At the port of Stockton, there’s talk of a facility that would produce hydrogen by steaming it out of methane but could claim to be carbon neutral by using credits for reductions of pollution elsewhere. In a farmworker community in western Fresno County, a pilot project will blend hydrogen into gas lines that go directly into homes for 10,000 people. Southern California Gas is floating the idea of AngelesLink. It’s billed as the nation’s largest clean hydrogen pipeline and could pipe the stuff into the Los Angeles basin. But little information is available yet about where clean fuel will come from in the first place.
Pressure gauges on a hydrogen storage facility at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. Chet Strange for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Major environmental groups, including Communities for a Better Environment, complain they don’t know much about these projects because they didn’t sign the ARCHES NDA, fearing that the secrecy required would compromise their advocacy in public processes. They worry that health risks and the influence of fossil fuel companies are being waved away.
In a letter to federal energy officials, the California Environmental Justice Association called the NDA a “delay tactic that allowed ARCHES to move forward without needing to account for and include impacted communities in decision-making.”
“Why should we as the public be living in this poverty of information about a massive taxpayer funded climate program?” said Earthjustice energy analyst Sasan Saadat. “It’s really galling.”
People in environmental justice communities are exactly who the California hub claims will benefit from the hydrogen boom. ARCHES says its overall proposal could help the state save nearly $3 billion by increasing “the economic value of health-related benefits” and creating 220,000 new jobs.
In a brief on its website, ARCHES attributes the potential health savings to cleaner air, based on a research paper commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission. That paper projects reductions in air pollution through the electrification of cars and trucks, ending the use of natural gas in buildings, and removing all emissions from natural gas power generation. It then models the anticipated public health benefits from each. But hydrogen is only glancingly mentioned.
As for the jobs estimate, the independent think tank Rhodium Group offers a stark counter-estimate. It suggests that California’s hub will create just 6,000 to 8,000 jobs during the construction phase and only several hundred long term.
Neighborhoods that might be affected by hydrogen development tend to be wary of promises of jobs or cleaner air. That’s particularly true in the Los Angeles basin, where people have long breathed fossil-fuel driven pollution from refineries and natural gas plants. Now the L.A. Department of Water and Power plans to retrofit one of those plants, the Scattergood Generating Station, so it can run on methane mixed with hydrogen. The plant would produce power to serve the region when demand peaks, as it does on hot days. The estimated cost to retrofit two of the plant’s three turbines is at least $800 million.
A view of the backside of the Scattergood Generating Station, which the L.A. Department of Water and Power plans to retrofit so it can run on methane mixed with hydrogen. Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
But hydrogen burned at high temperatures where oxygen is present, as in a gas plant, can create nitrogen oxides; those, in turn, contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog. Emerging science suggests that blending hydrogen into fossil gas could even increase those emissions, unless pollution controls are added.
“We should not be shooting for extending the life of combustion technology,” Earthjustice analyst Saadat said. “We know that we need to stop burning fuel at the tailpipe and the smokestack.”
ARCHES and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plan to transition Scattergood to 100 percent hydrogen — “as soon as it is technically and practically feasible to do so.” In the meantime, state officials have acknowledged that the continuing transformation of California’s energy economy comes with tradeoffs.
“Not everything is going to be zero all of the time in terms of emissions,” Rajinder Sahota, deputy executive officer for climate change at the California Air Resources Board, said at the hydrogen summit in Sacramento. “But making sure that, cumulatively, the exposure to harmful pollution is reduced is going to be important.”
The L.A. Department of Water and Power, or LADWP, is also “actively exploring” what happens next at its Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley. Valley notoriously leaked methane, which contributes to smog, for at least three years before officials notified anyone living nearby. The leak prompted a campaign by residents of the largely Latino neighborhood to shut Valley down, and water and power officials say demolition will soon begin. But the 12-acre property remains connected to gas infrastructure, and LADWP emphasizes that having dependable energy generated near where it’s needed in the L.A. basin is essential to a cleaner energy future.
An LADWP spokeswoman said the utility “is actively evaluating hydrogen as well as other emerging technologies [at Valley] that will maximize environmental and equity benefits. We have consistently engaged the community and will continue to do so.”
But residents aren’t reassured.
“So far it’s been hard to understand, Why this? Why this technology?” said Miguel Miguel, a policy advisor for the community advocacy group Pacoima Beautiful.
Molly Peterson/Public Health Watch
Miguel says the opaqueness about Valley’s future helped push California environmental justice advocates to circulate principles for an equitable energy transition to hydrogen last year. By their definition, green hydrogen relies on surplus water and renewable energy and doesn’t keep fossil fuels online. It also means communities are consulted respectfully from the start.
“There’s a possibility of green hydrogen as long as it doesn’t exacerbate problems,” Miguel said. “But for us, at Valley … in our opinion it’s the natural gas industry’s last-ditch effort to say, ‘You still need us.’ And that’s the hardest pill to swallow.”
Advocates like Miguel acknowledge that balancing Southern California’s energy sources responsibly, to avoid brownouts or skyrocketing costs, isn’t easy. That’s why they oppose dirty hydrogen — not all hydrogen.
But Martha Dina Arguello, the executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, says talk of green hydrogen has left her frustrated.
“You realize that nobody wants to make green hydrogen, right? There’s no profit in making green hydrogen,” she said. “The political reality is that nobody’s building that right now.”
In the coming months, federal agencies will set policies that clarify the direction ARCHES and the other hydrogen hubs will take.
When Energy Department ARCHES funding, it also finalized the hub’s operating rules. The Treasury Department, too, must finalize guidelines for companies wishing to access hydrogen tax credits. The two agencies don’t always agree; Politico has reported that some in the DOE were advocating internally for weaker rules, as many industry leaders have sought.
Meanwhile, California lawmakers are considering legislation that would streamline the state’s environmental review process for hydrogen projects. And some Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation are lobbying Treasury for weaker rules.
California’s hydrogen boosters seem confident about their strategy.
“Frankly, if you want green hydrogen to succeed, you need California,” ARCHES CEO Galiteva said at the Sacramento summit. She told a story about how Gov. Gavin Newsom sold federal officials on the state’s capacity to advance clean fuel.
Galiteva said the governor emphasized California’s strong climate goals and its robust marketplace for clean energy. And his pitch didn’t stop there.
“You need us more than we need you,” Newsom, by her account, told the DOE. “So you’d better give us a hub.”
Laughter erupted in a ballroom of industry representatives and public officials, as Galiteva smiled. “I guess they listened,” she said.
A former Papua New Guinea army leader, Major-General Jerry Singirok, is furious after being arrested and charged under the Capital Markets Act.
He was a trustee of Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd, part of a superannuation agency with 20,000 unit holders, but its trustee licence was revoked last year.
General Singirok said the agency was already embroiled in legal action over that revocation and he said his arrest on Wednesday was aimed at undermining that action.
He said Task Force Shield, which he said had been set up by Trades Minister Richard Maru, had made a series of allegations about the degree of oversight at Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd.
“They said that we did not audit, [but] we got audited, annual audits for the past 10 years,” he said.
“They said we didn’t do that. [They claimed] we continued to function without consulting our unit holders, which is wrong.
“There is a list of complaints, and as I said, it is now going to be subjected to a court. What’s important is that they are using the Capital Markets Act to charge us.”
General Singirok said in a Facebook post that he had spent his entire life fighting for the rights of the ordinary people and he would clear his name after what he is calling a “witchhunt”.
He said he had been a member of the superannuation operator since 1989.
The collapse of Bonza Aviation was sudden but not unexpected. While most start-up airlines in Australia fail, Bonza’s demise raises questions about why and who was behind it. Matt Prescott with the story.
The collapse of Bonza raises, yet again, the question of how to make the Australian Aviation industry more competitive. Can the cosy duopoly of Qantas and Virgin on major routes ever be challenged without giving more landing slots to international airlines at our capital city airports? Is the regulatory regime fit for purpose? Should we put limitations on who can own an Airline operating in the local market? Are the capital requirements for airline licenses adequate?
Bonza is just the latest in a long list of Australian airlines that have failed over the last three decades, including TigerAir Australia, Air Australia, BackpackersXpress, Impulse, Compass, and Ansett. Apart from Tiger Air and Ansett, the others all failed within two or three years; Compass managed that feat twice. (Virgin, of course, went into administration during the early month of COVID but was later resurrected.)
Apart from Qantas, the only long-time survivor in recent times is Rex Airlines, which has managed to carve out its own niche without getting too much in the way of Virgin and Qantas.
The difficulties associated with setting up airlines in Australia have pushed new entrants, such as Bonza, to adopt riskier business models, which skirt domestic regulations and shift financial risks onto customers, employees, and suppliers. As has recently been demonstrated by 57,933 Bonza customers having their flights cancelled, 323 employees being left unpaid, and 120 trade creditors being left millions out-of-pocket by Bonza’s collapse.
It also raises many questions about Bonza’s owner and who its ‘friends’ are.
The Bonza story
Bonza was set up as an Australian low-cost airline with ‘no frills’ such as airport lounges or loyalty schemes. It commenced operation on 31 January 2023 and lasted a mere 15 months. It is now in liquidation.
It prided itself on being the ‘Bogan’ airline, with marketing campaigns sporting branded budgie smugglers to prove it. Its business model was piggy-backed on infrastructure investments made in under-serviced regional airports, including Albury, Mildura, Port Macquarie, Bundaberg, Tamworth and Toowoomba. It also leaned heavily on the desperation of States, regional councils and businesses to attract investment, transport links and tourists.
The owners of Bonza, 777 Partners, have business interests all over the world and spent many months trying to buy Everton football club from Farhad Moshiri, a close business partner of Alisher Usmanov, who is one of Vladimir Putin’s favourite oligarchs and has been sanctioned by the UK, EU and USA for his links to the Kremlin following the invasion of Ukraine.
This is all public knowledge, and no illegal activity by Bonza Aviation has been alleged. However, it is notable that Australia has allowed one of its few airlines to be owned and operated by a business flying close to Vladimir Putin’s orbit.
In addition, Bonza’s business model was unusual and made use of aircraft ‘wet-leased‘ from a sister airline in Canada, Flair Airlines, which is also partially owned by 777 Partners. This meant that aircraft could be more effectively utilised by flying them in Australia during the Canadian winter and in Canada during the Australian winter.
The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) didn’t welcome the use of wet-leased Boeing aircraft crewed by Canadians, and it took until late 2023 to resolve this by using Australian crews.
“Three 737 MAX 8s and one 737-800 leased to Flair from a trio of Ireland-based lessors were seized last March, which reportedly resulted in 777 Partners sending planes that had been earmarked for Bonza to Flair to make up the shortfall. Up until it entered administration, Bonza was flying its own aircraft from the Gold Coast, with both its planes leased from Flair otherwise occupied. The two wet-leased Flair 737 MAX 8s, C-FLKC and C-FLHI or ‘Matilda’ and ‘Bruce’ respectively, shifted to a dry-lease arrangement, with the intention they would be operated by local crews from the Gold Coast. It’s been reported by The Guardian that the leasing companies Corvus Lights Aviation, MAM Aircraft Leasing 4 and Columba Lights Aviation were seeking $28.5 million (USD) from 777 Partners, but these demands have been ignored.”
Bonza went into administration on April 29, but it quickly became clear that liquidation was the only option. However, when the full extent of Bonza’s financial woes were laid bare at its first creditors’ meeting in Sydney, it was revealed the airline owed nearly $77m across two loans, almost $16m to trade creditors, and another $10m to landlords.
Other debt included more than $5m in staff wages and annual leave entitlements and $3 million to government authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office. Plane lessors, who sparked a crisis of cancellations at Bonza by terminating agreements and repossessing aircraft, are owed $4.6 million.
777 Partners
Based in Miami, Bonza’s owners own a curious combination of international soccer clubs and airlines. 777 Partners has, directly and indirectly, owned stakes in “soccer teams in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Brazil and Germany, as well as a 19.9% stake in Melbourne Victory (with an option to buy 70%). It also owns the London Lions basketball team and the mentioned minority stake in Canada’s Flair Airlines.
Allegedly, 777 Partners’ investment in Spanish club Sevilla FC was partly funded by a loan from Oleg Boyko, a business associate of Roman Abramovich, via EVRAZ Holding. Roman Abramovich was the owner of Chelsea Football Club until 2022 when he was forced to sell.
Earlier in his career, Roman Abramovich was a business partner of Boris Berezovsky via Sibneft (now Gazprom Neft) and Oleg Deripaska via RUSAL. He flourished for many years under the patronage of both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin but is now subject to international sanctions and has become a citizen of Israel and Portugal.
Oleg Boyko is a Russian businessman who has been sanctioned by several countries for his reported connections to the Russian state. In 2024, Boyko allegedly demanded 777 Partners’ shares in Sevilla FC as collateral for his loan.
As a side note, Rupert Murdoch recently married Elena Zhukova, the mother of Dasha Zhukova, Roman Abramovich’s third wife.
Extract of Bonza and 777 Partners network diagram. (C) Copyright Matt Preston
The Everton FC mess
In September 2023, 777 Partners agreed to buy Everton Football Club of England’s Premier League by purchasing the 94.1% owned by Farhad Moshiri.
Everton has been struggling with over £400m of debt and tried to raise over £150m from New York-based GDA Luma Capital so that they could repay a £158m loan from MSP Sports Capital and complete construction of their new football ground at Bramley Moore Docks in Liverpool.
777 Partners ran into trouble with Bonza at the same time as they were attempting to close the Everton deal. 777 Partners eventually had to send a payment of £16m to Everton so they could maintain day-to-day operations and this inevitably meant attention and resources were diverted away from solving Bonza’s problems.
Hence, Farhad Moshiri, a British-Iranian businessman based in Monaco, remains the majority owner of Everton FC and a former chairman of USM Holdings, a Russian holding company.4 Earlier in his career, he worked for EY and Deloitte Touche, prior to serving as the chairman of Metalloinvest and subsequently becoming chairman of USM Holdings.4
In April 2024, with the deal with 777 Partners not complete, Everton called upon the services of insolvency advisors Teneo. Amid lawsuits against 777 Partners in other countries, the Everton Shareholders’ Association wrote to Moshiri requesting that he terminate the deal. 777 enlisted B. Riley Financial for advice to complete the deal.
According to 777’s own lawyers, Josh Wander and Steven Pasko resigned as managers of the company on May 6, 2024, but remained as its 100% owners. On June 1, 2024, 777 Partners’ deadline to conclude the takeover of Everton expired. Despite the 777 Partners bid for Everton Football Club falling through, this deal was a serious proposition for a prolonged period of time and is worth considering some of the main protagonists in further detail.
That story – about the hyper-complex, subtle and stealthy commercial activities of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs in the football world – to come.
With digital media and the rise of streaming music services, the sale of physical albums and singles has dried up. Artists now rely on making a living from live performances, but that, too, is under threat. Michael Sainsbury with the story.
Australia’s Arts Minister Tony Burke has a guitar strapped on for his Instagram profile pic. He regularly posts shots of himself at gigs and was vocal in his support of the local live music industry during his time in opposition.
But it’s the multinational music and ticketing companies that are benefitting most from these changes, not the local music industry.
In government, so far, Burke has followed through with launching the first serious national arts initiative in living memory in the shape of Revive, a national cultural policy whose centrepiece is Creative Australia, backed with $286 million. Long ignored by the government, the live music sector is about to come under the microscope, with a Federal parliamentary inquiry into “the challenges and opportunities within the Australian live music industry” finally underway.
Venues struggling
Yet for all of Burke’s good vibes – and a small slice of the new government-funded cultural pie – the local live music sector remains in trouble.
“Small venues are a crucial step in the ladder to success that is widespread enough to earn a living from having enough monthly listeners on Spotify and playing bigger venues,” Howard Adams, President of the Australian Live Music Business Association (ALMBA), tells MWM.
The fallow years of COVID saw many venues close and continue to struggle, along with ill-conceived projects like Sydney’s long-standing lockout laws. Today, rising costs for energy, insurance, and security, as well as fans watching their spending due to the cost-of-living crisis, have seen venues close, leaving local artists struggling to be heard.
And venues are still struggling post COVID. Great Club in Marrickville and The Zoo in Brisbane are two important venues that closed their doors recently, Adams cites, adding “there is constant chatter about the viability of venues.”
According to musician (and MWM video producer) Joshua Barnett,
“Insurance companies are continuing to charge extortionate amounts after COVID and local venues like the Zoo simply can’t afford that on top of raising rents.”
Multinational domination
One major concern is that the $3 billion local live music industry is increasingly dominated by overseas corporations like Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster and private equity firms, such as US-owned and Cayman Islands-domiciled Silverlake, which owns other major players, including Ticket Entertainment Group (TEG).
This model favours big-name offshore artists performing at mega venues.
Live Nation’s vertically integrated model sees it promote everything from mega-shows such as Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Billie Eilish to festivals like (recently cancelled) Splendour in the Grass and Harvest Rock. Along with ownership or controlling interest in venues, ticketing companies and also clipping the ticket on merchandise and on-site concessions.
In Australia, it has bulked up with a string of acquisitions across the sector in recent years in ticketing and promotions, as well as building and buying a number of major venues.
“If a promoter company owns the ticket company, they get all sorts of advantages, Brian “Smash” Chladil, founder and managing director of local ticketing company OzTix, explained to MWM. “Ticket companies have both a lot of data and a lot of cash. Both are usually protected by consumer law and privacy law. The promoter company is able to gain access to the cash and data.”
And here’s the rub, Chladil says – and Live Nation’s financials bear him out – that the promoter realises that they don’t need to make money by promoting anymore because they make so much in ticket fees, selling their customer’s data and investing the cash.
Last year, Live Nation reported a 2% profit margin in its concerts division, while ticketing made 38% and ads and sponsorships 62%.
“If you are a promoter trying to make money on a tour, how can you compete with a company that doesn’t need to make money on the promoting side? It’s inherently anti-competitive and should never have been allowed,” Chladil says.
An analysis provided to MWM shows that concerts ticketed by Ticketmaster take from 19 to 24% of the ticket’s face value, compared to only 9 to 11% by Australian vendors Oztix and Moshtox. Ticketmaster also takes up to 20% of merchandise sales at the venues.
In the US, the Department of Justice wants to split Live Nation’s ticketing and promotion businesses. It was joined in an anti-trust lawsuit filed in May by Attorneys General from 29 states, and the District of Columbia joined the federal antitrust lawsuit.
As mentioned, Live Nation’s accounts show that it is from ticketing rather than artist tours, where almost all its profit flows. Critics argue that the company has won a key battle in having the so-called “all in ticketing” legislated by the ‘Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act‘ that passed Congress recently.
“Because Ticketmaster or Ticketek has exclusive control of venues there is no regulation to stop them charging what they want and calling various invented charges whatever they want,” one industry insider who did not want to be named said.
The integrated model is increasingly prevalent in Australia, where independent promoters and ticketing companies say money is being sucked from consumers by international acts and global companies – that pay little or no tax in Australia – increasingly starving smaller venues and local artists. Yet in Australia the company – in tandem with its fellow ticketing oligopolist TEG (Ticketek), continues unimpeded.
Venues need support
It’s a widespread problem, but solutions are emerging. In the UK, a one-pound venue ticketing levy has been proposed to help fund small venues and local acts, and in some European countries, government-funded live music “passports” are handed out to young people to help them form gig-attending habits.
In 2022, the Spanish Government funded a Youth Cultural Bonus that saw Spanish young people given €400 of vouchers to spend on the arts when they turned 18. This constituted up to €200 on live events or activities up to €100 on physical products and up to €100 on digital products and services, including music streaming subscriptions.
Here, the ALMBA is gathering industry support for an arena ticket levy based on the UK model. This levy would involve collecting a small amount – projected at $1 – from each ticket sold for major events in large arenas. The funds would be managed through a trust specifically established to support smaller, independent venues that are crucial to the nurturing and development of local talent.
The levy would directly support the maintenance and upgrading of small to medium-sized venues. This would also providide financial resources to venues that are foundational to the music ecosystem, ensuring they can continue to host new and existing talent. The idea is to
encourage a healthier balance between large-scale events and grassroots music scenes, fostering a diverse and vibrant cultural offering.
“We need broad support; we simply can’t have grassroots venues fall out of the market”, Adams says.
In terms of what the government can do, Adams says that it’s “a big education piece – they mean well, but can’t be expected to know the details about an industry that has been happy to be quite opaque for years. “So the same vested interests are sounded out each time – this will take time as well as some genuine thought and a new approach.”
Support local musicians, not mega-artists
Recent news emerged that the Western Australian government handed $8 million to Live Nation to subsidise exclusive Coldplay concerts for the state, adding to $16 million previously reported that was given to Live Nation or companies it owns by state and federal government programs.
Compare this to last month’s announcement that Music Australia, a new body to promote local music under the Creative Australia umbrella, would give $1.45 million to support 98 projects involving a range of artists, from solo acts to bands, producers, composers and songwriters.
This disparity highlights the need for plenty of education on how taxpayers’ money should be spent in the sector and the urgency of regulation.
With much fanfare and celebration, Georgia Power, the state’s largest electricity provider, just marked a major milestone: Two new nuclear reactors near Augusta are now generating enough energy to power a million homes, without using fossil fuels or emitting planet-warming carbon dioxide.
The new Plant Vogtle nuclear reactors are the first built in the United States in decades. They entered service years later than originally promised and at twice their original budget, after more than a decade of construction and financial delays.
At the launch event in May, a parade of utility executives and elected officials celebrated the project as a triumph of perseverance — and as a major step forward for clean energy.
Also applauding the effort was Chris Smith, the chief implementation officer for Hyundai’s new electric vehicle plant near Savannah.
“I’m very happy to be here to support another positive step toward clean energy in Georgia,” Smith told the crowd. “Hyundai is committed to contributing to the sustainable future of society and seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.”
Smith said the carbon-free power from Plant Vogtle will help the car company reach its climate goal. But it doesn’t achieve it entirely.
As part of its target, Hyundai has pledged to use 100 percent renewable energy from the start of mass production at the Georgia plant, expected later this year. Even with the new reactors at Plant Vogtle, less than half of Georgia Power’s electricity is carbon-free, according to the utility’s data.
While Georgia Power’s next long-range plan isn’t due until next year, the current plans put forward by the utility and approved by the state’s Public Service Commission won’t significantly change that ratio in the near future; the utility has expanded solar, for instance, but also added gas turbines and floated delaying coal plant retirements. That has left Hyundai to make up the difference on its own. The company recently signed a deal to offset its Georgia energy use with power from a solar farm in Texas.
Voluntary clean energy targets like Hyundai’s are increasingly common among corporations and government entities — as are gaps between their ambitions and the clean energy that utilities and their regulators are providing.
As climate change intensifies, this story is playing out repeatedly in Georgia and across the country. Key deadlines for clean energy targets are looming — many of them cite 2025 or 2030 as their first goalposts — and companies and local governments can’t achieve those goals on their own. They need support from electric utilities and regulators in the form of pro-renewable energy policies and investments as well as more carbon-free energy, support that some say isn’t coming fast enough.
“Your schedule for operation is not dependent on your utility’s programs,” said Katie Southworth, who leads policy work in the U.S. Southeast for the Clean Energy Buyers Association, which represents more than 400 members looking to go carbon-free. “You have to have energy Day One.”
Georgia Power’s parent corporation, Atlanta-based Southern Company, has announced it aims to hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050. At the company’s annual meeting in May, CEO Chris Womack touted its progress: “Over 80 percent of the resource additions planned across our system, totaling nearly 10,000 megawatts from 2023 to 2030, are zero-carbon emitting resources,” he said.
But Southern Company subsidiaries like Georgia Power are still adding new gas plants and putting off coal retirements, committing to continued carbon emissions for years in the future.
Georgia Power and Southern Company both declined interviews for this story. Georgia Power pointed to its programs to expand clean energy, and Southern says it’s committed to its own net zero target.
Still, these and other utilities’ pace of change has companies and governments worried about meeting their own clean energy targets. Some are bypassing public service commissions and utilities by looking for alternative sources of energy outside, as in the Hyundai example. Others are wading into the world of state energy regulation, aiming to change utilities’ plans.
The city of Decatur, Georgia’s energy and sustainability manager David Nifong said the town is adding solar panels and improving energy efficiency as it aims to reach 100 percent citywide clean energy by 2050. But, he said, Decatur can’t do it alone. The city needs help from Georgia Power, which supplies electricity to 2.7 million customers in 155 of the state’s 159 counties, including all of Decatur.
“Our clean energy plan says it explicitly. We’re not going to be able to meet our clean energy goals without the utility,” he said.
So Decatur has joined forces with other local governments across the state to intervene before the state’s Public Service Commission, which has final say over Georgia Power’s prices and energy sources. They have opposed the utility’s proposals to add fossil fuel generation and pushed instead for expanded use of renewables, as well as more affordable energy for residents.
Large corporations with a presence in Georgia, like Microsoft, are citing their own fast-approaching clean energy deadlines as they aim to influence the state’s Public Service Commission, or PSC, as well.
Even the U.S. Department of Defense, which is trying to achieve carbon-free energy by 2035, had harsh words at PSC hearings earlier this year, criticizing Georgia Power’s updated integrated resource plan, or IRP, which lays out the utility’s long-range plans for generating electricity.
“I’m frustrated that we are probably your biggest customer and nothing in this IRP addresses any of our needs, which are substantial,” said Defense lawyer John McNutt.
Southworth of the Clean Energy Buyers Association said large customers are willing to pay for adding clean energy. “Our members are very motivated to bring solutions to utility commissions and to utilities,” she said.
There are small signs of progress from these efforts: Georgia Power has pledged to develop a new clean energy program that Nifong in Decatur and the other local governments pushed for, which will help customers install renewable energy paired with batteries that Georgia Power can draw on to bolster the power grid when demand spikes. The company’s latest IRP, approved by the Public Service Commission in April, also adds battery storage to existing solar fields at two Air Force bases.
Still, as death tolls from blistering heat rise and extreme weather intensifies, critics say the utility is moving too slowly — extending carbon emissions that climate experts say the planet can’t afford.
“We need utilities to match our ambition,” Southworth said.
“Tell the ops dude for a solution. Guy has x amount of metal been paying storage fees and we haven’t stored it for him ever.”
The change to ABC Bullion’s website was met at the time with derision by employees within The Good Place.
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