Wealthy foreigners help fund Environmental Defenders Office to stall Australian energy projects in the courts

The billionaire widow of Apple’s Steve Jobs is leading a foreign charge to funnel money to a taxpayer-funded activist body that tries to block Australian energy projects in court.

American clothing giant Patagonia, the foundation launched by the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs and the Albanese Government have joined forces to fund protracted litigation that is stymieing job-creating energy projects across our nation.

Millions of dollars in overseas donations to the Environmental Defenders Office come on top of almost $15m in taxpayer funds from the federal and state governments over the past five years that have been used to stall resource developments in the courts.

Now the EDO has come under fire in the Federal Court for concocting Indigenous songlines to block Santos’s $5.7bn LNG pipeline in the Timor Sea, and questions are being asked about the motives behind its overseas financiers.

Justice Natalie Charlesworth was scathing of the tactics used by the EDO’s lawyers, saying they had engaged “in a form of subtle witness coaching” and had presented evidence “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”.

The EDO was last week ordered to pay Santos’s entire costs totalling more than $9m.

The foundation established by Laurene Powell Jobs – the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs – has provided $1.5m in funding to the Environmental Defenders Office in Australia. Picture: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Federal Opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam quizzed Department of Climate Change bureaucrats about who is funding the EDO and was told a quick look at the website did not raise any “red flags”.

“The government seems to be oblivious to the fact that international groups are plunging money into the EDO,” he said.

“The reality is that the government doesn’t know which international organisations, working in partnership with them, are fuelling the EDO’s lawfare. Are they foreign companies or governments that want to disrupt our gas industry?”

The EDO does not disclose how much money it receives from individual benefactors but a check of donor statements for 2022 show it received $1.8m from Oceans 5, an American green charity dedicated to saving the world’s oceans; $1.5m from the Waverley Street Foundation which was founded in the US by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple’s Steve Jobs; and $490,000 from Danish climate group the KR Foundation.

A string of other donations including from the Patagonia Fund, which is linked to the clothing brand, are undisclosed.

The foreign cash has helped to bring the EDO’s income for 2023 to $13m and comes on top of $7m in state government cash between 2019 and 2023 and $8.3m over four years promised in the October 2022 federal budget by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“It is scandalous that the Albanese Government thinks that it is appropriate to plunge upwards of $15m of taxpayer money into the EDO when they use these funds to reverse governmental decisions,” Mr Duniam said.

“The EDO is awash with funds. It does not deserve taxpayer money. Miners and regional workers would be aghast to know that the Albanese Government is funding an

organisation that is working against them, and has a history of confecting evidence and coaching Indigenous witnesses to suit their arguments.”

The EDO is using the money to beef up its legal team to entangle in legal red tape projects that would provide thousands of badly needed jobs to Australians.

In the past year, the EDO has advertised for 37 lawyers to join its teams in roles costing millions of dollars.

Analysis of the EDO’s financial report shows those jobs come on top of its 108 staff and does not include the 88 legal counsel, 49 “science and legal experts” and almost 160 legal volunteers.

It has also engaged top-notch legal firms including Baker McKenzie, Banki Haddock Fiora, Burgess Criminal Lawyers, Geroro Lawyers, Gilbert + Tobin, Hall & Wilcox, Higgins Chambers, HWL Ebsworth, Moray & Agnew and Norton Rose Fulbright.

That army of litigants has been fielded in a range of high-profile cases including the $1bn McPhillamys gold project at Blayney in central west NSW, which was vetoed by federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Expert evidence has since emerged that the Indigenous blue banded bee dreaming story used to kybosh the mine did not exist before 2022.

Federal Opposition resources spokeswoman Susan McDonald said the EDO was not furthering Indigenous outcomes and was undermining Australia’s reputation as a reliable trading partner overseas.

“Groups like the EDO operate under the guise of providing legal assistance, when in reality they act as political operatives, pushing an agenda that is not in the interests of Australians or the groups they claim to represent,” she said.

Senator Susan McDonald accuses the EDO of acting as “political operatives” by bogging down projects in costly court action. Picture: Tracey Nearmy

Other projects entangled in EDO lawfare include the McArthur River Mine in the Northern Territory at a cost of 1000 jobs, and salmon farming in Tasmania, one of the state’s largest industries.

Stephen Galilee, chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, said taxpayers would be “concerned” that the EDO acts as subsidised legal service for “radical protesters”.

“It’s ridiculous that the EDO receives taxpayer funds to mount spurious legal challenges that disrupt and delay approved projects,” he said.

But the government has put the EDO on notice. Ms Plibersek has written to the head of the EDO, telling him to improve its standards.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek recently ordered the EDO to lift its game after a damning Federal Court ruling. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“I do not believe … that the conduct of the EDO has met the standard that any of us in this place would expect,” Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong recently told the Senate.

“There is no place for unethical or unprofessional conduct, and that is the expectation that the minister has made clear to the CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office.”

A spokesman for the EDO said it acknowledged the donors who wished to be named in its Impact Report and complies with all regulatory requirements that apply to charities.

He said accusations that it was engaging in “lawfare” were false. “For almost 40 years, EDO has been providing public interest legal support to communities fighting to keep the climate safe, defend cultural heritage and protect the species and places they love,” he said.

Originally published as Wealthy foreigners help fund Environmental Defenders Office to stall Australian energy projects in the courts