Cook defends accepting donations from gas players while developing new policies that benefit them

West Australian Labor Premier Roger Cook has defended his party’s acceptance of donations from Mineral Resources while his government was considering changes to the state’s gas policy at the same time the miner was lobbying him to scrap the onshore gas export ban.

This is despite his own government accusing the National Party of being “owned by the gun lobby” a week ago for taking a $50,000 donation from the Sporting Shooters Association of WA while gun reforms were being debated in parliament.

WA Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Trevor Collens

The WA Electoral Commission’s weekly donation register shows billionaire Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources Limited made nearly $9000 worth of donations to WA Labor in July.

Ellison has previously lashed the state’s onshore gas export ban, saying it was preventing onshore gas projects like Mineral Resources’ planned 250 terajoule-a-day Lockyer plant from being viable because they could not access more lucrative global markets for their gas.

Mineral Resources, which brought on former premier Mark McGowan as an adviser after he retired last year, made the donations in the middle of a parliamentary inquiry that was finalising its report into the domestic gas policies, including the onshore gas export ban.

The government had also been working behind the scenes for months devising the suite of policy reforms.

This culminated in Cook’s announcement on Thursday that the onshore ban would be lifted for six years – allowing companies to export 20 per cent of their gas.

Cook rejected any suggestion that it was inappropriate for his party to accept Mineral Resources’ donations while significant gas policy decisions were afoot.

“I’m sure Chris Ellison has engaged with the government in the interests of his company, and that’s what we are endeavouring to do here,” he said.

“Let me make this clear, we’ve made this decision today in the interests of West Australian households and West Australian industry because securing the future for our domestic gas supplies means that we can keep lower prices and more reliable supplies of domestic gas to both the WA households and to WA industry.”

Last week, Cook’s own Police Minister Paul Papalia accused the Nationals of being “owned” by the gun lobby for accepting a $50,000 donation from the state’s peak advocacy body for firearm owners while gun reforms were being debated.

When pressed about why Papalia’s criticisms were valid and not criticism over his own party’s donations, Cook said political donations were a fact of life, which is why his government had brought in some of the most transparent donation disclosure rules in the country.

He rejected any notion that the money swayed his government’s decision-making.

“We treat everyone in an industry as equals, regardless of where they might be making political donations or other activities,” he said.

“Now you say they might be big winners out of this. They may not see it in that way.

“We know that this isn’t a decision that will please all consumers of gas. It’s not a decision that will please all producers of gas. We believe it is getting the balance right.”

That announcement had a material impact on the viability and value of onshore gas projects in the state, though analysts were muted about its impact.

MST Marquee energy analyst Saul Kavonic described it as better than nothing, but “not much” and a “mild positive” for Perth basin producers like Mineral Resources and Strike Energy.

Mineral Resources did not respond to questions about the donations or what financial impact the policy change would have on its Lockyer project.

A spokesman welcomed the certainty the announcement had brought and that the company would “continue assessing all options to maximise value from our Perth Basin exploration success.”

Greens MP Brad Pettitt called on Cook to publicly release details of all meetings between his government and McGowan in his role for Mineral Resources.

“This kind of behaviour does not pass the pub test and, frankly, should be illegal,” Pettitt said.

“It’s clear that despite changes to electoral laws last year, our donations [system] is still broken and corporations are still exerting undue influence over our democracy.”

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