NSW government ‘heavied’ Lismore City Council to invest in fossil fuels

A Lismore councillor claims your investment money is helping support the fossil fuel industry at a time when the community is at the ‘front lines’ of climate change. Why Adam Guise wants a reset.

The NSW government “heavied” Lismore City Council to invest into fossil-fuel industries, councillors claim.

Fossil fuel investment by council increased steadily when Treasury Corp – the central borrowing authority for the state – told them they would need to invest in the major banks in order to access loans, councillor Vanessa Ekins said.

Council had earlier pulled its investment moneys out of institutions which had connections with the fossil fuel industry like the major banks, favouring instead smaller credit unions.

“We were really proud of our strategy … we actually got up to 70 per cent of our investments in non-fossil fuel banks,” Ms Ekins said.

Councillor Vanessa Ekins speaking in council chambers.

“We were investing with mostly building societies like Summerland Credit Union, and I really loved that because they’re local businesses. They do lots for community engagement, they fund community projects and they employ local people.”

But then Treasury Corp gave Lismore City Council the ultimatum - “if you want to borrow from us – you need to invest in triple A institutions, which are the four big banks,” Ms Ekins said.

“They really did heavy us,” she said.

“We had Skype meetings with people from Treasury Corp putting pressure on us saying that we need to do this if we ever want to borrow money from them again.

“And much to my disgust, the majority of members of the council (at the time) decided we would pull our money out from institutions that didn’t invest in fossil fuels and that we would toe the state government line.”

Councillor Adam Guise, who is running as the Greens candidate for Lismore in the 2023 state election, plans to submit a motion to update council’s investment strategy.

“We’re funding the fossil fuel industry through the major banks so they can inflict more extreme weather on us,” Mr Guise said.

Lismore City councillor Adam Guise. Picture: Cath Piltz

“This is off the back of these devastating floods and bushfires, so there’s a disconnect.

“On the one hand we’re on the front lines of climate change … and on the other hand our investment portfolio is propping up the industries that are furthering it and smashing us.”

The current confirmed investment portfolio sits at $123,962,000 with 72 per cent of investments exposed to fossil fuels industries as of June 30 2022.

Whereas, at September 30, 2020, investments sat at $86,167,000, with 50 per cent of investments exposed to fossil fuel industries.