‘Change from within’: Climate independent MP defends fossil fuel shares

Climate 200-backed independent Kylea Tink says she purchased “small shareholdings” in two fossil fuel companies to better understand their operations and potentially drive change from within.

Tink – who was elected as the federal independent MP for North Sydney in May alongside several other “teals” – owns shares in Viva Energy Group, which refines oil for Shell in Australia and owns Geelong Oil Refinery, and Beach Energy, an oil and gas exploration and production firm.

Kylea Tink said she bought shares in two fossil fuel companies so that she could be a shareholder activist.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The investments were revealed in Tink’s recently published declaration of interests, a requirement for all MPs.

Through a spokesperson, Tink told the Herald and The Age she bought small shareholdings in a number of companies “where she felt shareholder activism may be a way to both better understand the entities involved and potentially exert pressure from within to drive reform”.

Tink chose Viva Energy as she was “concerned the refinery was not being pushed to produce the highest quality fuel for the Australian market”, while she chose Beach Energy to “provide her with insight into how they were proceeding with oil and gas exploration”.

“Kylea has been very vocal in her desire to see change and reform and remains committed to exploring shareholder activism as a way to affect change,” the spokesperson said.

“She would encourage anyone with the capacity to take such a course of action to also become shareholders in the companies that they wish to see reformed as it is often only from working within that change can be driven.”

Tink did not disclose how many shares she bought but said she donated her dividend payments to renewable energy campaigns or emissions offsetting. Her spokesperson did not answer questions about the extent of her shareholder activism, whether she attended any shareholder meetings or whether she would now divest her shares.

Like other teals, Tink has been critical of fossil fuels and the companies that profit from them, including in a tweet in April: “Fossil fuel producers need to find other forms of energy if they want to stay in business.”

Beach Energy – whose largest shareholder is billionaire mogul Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group – has cashed in on rising commodity prices over the past 12 months and is due to start exporting LNG from the Waitsia Stage 2 gas project in the Perth Basin next year.

Viva Energy says its Geelong refinery supplies more than 50 per cent of Victoria’s fuel. It also wants to develop a floating terminal in Corio Bay, at the Geelong end of Port Phillip, which could receive super-chilled cargoes of LNG from Western Australia or overseas.

Tink’s register of interests also revealed joint ownership of two trusts, Hendren Property and HML Asset Capital, which make “investment(s) in related companies”, as well as shares in Telstra and Sonic Healthcare, among other firms.

Before entering politics her career included stints as chief executive of children’s cancer charity Camp Quality, breast cancer charity McGrath Foundation and public relations agency Edelman.

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