Talking Point: Andrew Forrest’s chutzpah is not welcome in Tasmania

Warnings about the cost of green hydrogen should be a red light to gullible politicians who fall for billionaire Andrew Forrest’s pleas for corporate welfare, writes GREG BARNS.

CHUTZPAH — one dictionary meaning is “supreme self-confidence: nerve, gall”.

One might add, as dictionaries often do, an example of the use of the word. So here it is: chutzpah as in Andrew Forrest aggressively lobbying premiers to provide him with a dose of corporate welfare so he can make money from his newly found enthusiasm for climate change mitigation in the form of green hydrogen power.

Fresh from his, in the eyes of some, opportunist intervention in the Tasmanian salmon issue, the man behind the demeaning welfare card is now demanding Western Australia’s Labor Premier McGowan and this state’s Peter Gutwein make Forrest’s dream a reality, using taxpayer funds of course.

The West Australian reported last Friday that Forrest has been penning, in the author’s own words, “increasingly strident” letters to Mr McGowan saying: “Mate, we can’t wish [Forrest’s green hydrogen energy plant] this into existence, you’re either going to it or not.”

Andrew Forrest has been lobbying multiple premiers to help him fund his clean hydrogen investments..

While the Queensland government is rolling out red carpet made with taxpayer funds for Forrest with an announcement last week he will build his plant in Gladstone, Mr McGowan was rightly telling Forrest his corporate welfare pitch was going nowhere in WA.

The WA Premier said he was not in the business of “giving billions of dollars of WA taxpayers’ money to multinational corporations” to accelerate the switch to clean energy, according to the West Australian.

Forrest’s chutzpah and salesmanship is infecting Tasmania with his lobbying of Mr Gutwein. Last week this newspaper reported on Forrest’s extraordinary push to get Tassie taxpayers on the hook for a hydrogen plant.

Forrest ran a guilt trip on the Gutwein government with his line that he “wanted the first announcement to be made in Tasmania but that opportunity has now passed”.

The Queensland Labor government gave Forrest what he wanted, in other words.

Forrest is impatient with the Gutwein government. He said last week “the government is aware of the scale of the opportunity and know I’m serious about my investment”, but “I have been waiting for an answer for a while now. It’s been very slow and there are other opportunities in other parts of Australia.”

Andrew Forrest is pressuring Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein over funding for a possible green hydrogen plant in the state. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Any fiscally responsible government would tell Forrest his chutzpah is not welcome in Tasmania and handing over taxpayer funds to corporates has generally ended badly for taxpayers. In any event why is it government business to fill the coffers of billionaires like Forrest? Answer, it’s not.

A useful analysis by the ABC’s Emily Baker last week shows exactly who would win out of a capitulation by Mr Gutwein to the salesman from the West. The report included comments from Professionals Australia state director Luke Crowley who argues that his members, which includes senior power experts, “estimate that every dollar per megawatt hour saved by Twiggy could cost Tasmanians taxpayers $2 million per year,” because Tasmania would need to import more power, likely at a higher cost and have less power to export to Victoria.

The other reason, besides the obvious one that governments have no business supporting corporate welfare, is that Forrest’s hydrogen plant push is essentially new technology.

Michael Liebriech, a senior writer for Bloomberg NEF, injected some reality into the hype over hydrogen this year, when he said: “Sadly, hydrogen displays an equally impressive list of disadvantages. It does not occur in nature so it requires energy to separate. Its storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure, refrigeration to minus 253 degrees Celsius or combining with an organic chemical or metal hydride. It carries one quarter the energy per unit volume of natural gas, whether liquefied or as a gas at any given temperature and pressure. Fuel cells and other equipment designed to use hydrogen have many moving parts requiring maintenance. It can embrittle metal; it escapes through the tiniest leaks; and, yes, it really is explosive.”

A green-tech hydrogen production plant at the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park in Wesseling, Germany. Picture: Getty

Liebriech is not on his own. Australian-born and educated Saul Griffith, a prominent inventor and creator in the tech and energy space, told the Financial Review on August 17 that “Green hydrogen starts with green electrons. It is inherently more expensive and less efficient than direct electrification because you need three to four times the number of electrons to get the same end use effect, whether it be power generation, transportation or heat.”

Of course green hydrogen, as it is called, might prove to be the game changer in the energy space its proponents like Forrest believe. But it may not, and the warnings about cost should be a red light to even gullible politicians who fall for Forrest’s pleas for corporate welfare.

One hopes Mr Gutwein’s advisers in Treasury tell him to spend taxpayer funds where they are needed – reducing wealth inequality in Australia’s poorest state, not on billionaires like Mr Forrest. It would be sickening, truly so, if the latter gets a handout.

Hobart barrister Greg Barns SC is a human rights lawyer who has advised federal and state Liberal governments.