MEMBER for Mallee Anne Webster has escalated attacks on the adoption of electric vehicles, batteries and a “reckless rush to renewables” while her husband owns shares in businesses betting on a bright future for these technologies.
She is also not the only federal politician with Sunraysia constituents to make recent public comments that appear at odds with family shareholding disclosures, a Sunraysia Daily investigation can reveal.
Dr Webster told parliament last month that “nobody seriously thinks EVs will be deployed en masse in the regions”, that replacing EV batteries could cost “thousands of dollars”, and that a visitor was recently “stranded” in Mallee because their EV didn’t travel its expected 500km.
“Labor are bloodthirsty to kill the regional golden goose wherever they can, whether it is strangling farms in thousands of kilometres of massive transmission lines, gigantic wind turbines, blanketing farms in solar panels, or ripping up prime agricultural land without social licence to extract rare earths for – guess what – EV batteries,” she said in the same speech.
The Nationals MP last month spoke at the Reckless Renewables Rally in Canberra and has frequently clashed with the bodies steering and overseeing the VNI West interconnector project, which would allow more energy from solar and wind projects – including those supported by battery storage – to be sent to the grid.
In Dr Webster’s statement of registerable interests lodged with Federal Parliament, it was disclosed that her spouse, Philip Webster, owned shareholdings in 13 companies.
The list included three battery-mineral miners – Piedmont Lithium, Liontown Resources and Arizona Lithium – and the exchange-traded fund ETFS Battery Tech & Lithium, which invests in a basket of companies.
Liontown’s website said it sought to supply “the battery minerals required by the rapidly growing electric-vehicle and energy-storage industries”.
ETFS Battery Tech & Lithium told prospective fund investors in a factsheet that “battery technology and lithium are essential to the rise of electric vehicles (and) renewable-energy storage”.
Of the fund’s 10 largest holdings, five were in carmakers mentioned in a recent RACV article as having “big plans” for electric vehicles.
Dr Webster told Sunraysia Daily her personal views on EVs, batteries, renewables and supporting infrastructure did not differ from her public views.
“With regard to the shareholdings, I am technology agnostic,” she said.
“There needs to be significant investment in research and development for products that are suitable for regional Australia.
“The fact that I am questioning the merit of EVs in regional Australia, notwithstanding my husband’s minor shareholding, underscores that I put the interests and views of Mallee people first.”
ANU Australian Studies Institute honorary professor Colleen Lewis said the “strident comments” Dr Webster has made did appear to be contradictory of the shareholdings.
However, Dr Lewis said the Websters had done the right thing by declaring the shares, and the interests of a spouse could not be taken as the interests of the MP themselves.
“They’re two separate people,” she said.
Dr Webster has not expressed outright opposition to VNI West, and many of her comments have concerned the consultation and transparency of the proponents.
However, in June last year she called for the project to be paused, and said the size and height of towers “unacceptably impacts on Mallee farmers”.
She said this month she would be “galvanising” affected landholders and encouraging them to protest against what she termed the government’s “reckless rush to renewables”.
Dr Webster this week claimed federal and state Labor governments “see farmland as greenfields to carve up for wind turbines, solar panels, transmission lines or mines for lithium batteries”.
“The Prime Minister claims coal is no longer viable,” she told parliament on Tuesday. “Meanwhile, it’s drinks on the house for wind turbine and solar farm proponents.”
Philip Webster’s other shareholdings were in Westpac, Brambles, Telstra, Qantas, Vicinity Centres, West Wits Mining, Empire Resources, Coles Group and Scentre Group.
Question of trust
LIBERAL Senator for NSW Dave Sharma, who took office in November to fill a casual vacancy, was from 2019 to 2022 the party’s member for the inner-Sydney seat of Wentworth.
In his previous House of Representatives disclosures, Senator Sharma listed 25 shareholdings owned jointly by himself and his wife, reportedly held by a trust, and through his term, he submitted several alterations detailing share sales and purchases.
In February 2022, with an election looming, The Daily Telegraph reported that he was urging other politicians to follow his lead and reveal shares held in family trusts and self-managed super funds.
Many politicians disclose interest in trusts, but it is often unclear what – if any – shareholdings those trusts have.
Senator Sharma, who has a Cambridge law degree, was reported as saying that his read on the Lower House rules was that interests could not be hidden behind a trust.
“I have been scrupulous in doing so (disclosing shareholdings) on the register,” he said. “But I am not certain this is universal practice across the parliament.”
However, now that Senator Sharma sits in the Upper House, he has a new register of interests – one with far fewer disclosures.
Instead of a long list of shareholdings, only one is named: Sharma Family Company Pty Ltd, of which ASIC records list him as the sole shareholder.
In a separate interest-register section on trusts, Senator Sharma and his partner were named as beneficiaries of the Sharma Family Trust.
A handbook for senators on interest registers says that for shareholdings, requirements include “shares held by a family or business trust, a nominee company, a partnership or a self-managed superannuation fund”.
It is possible that Senator Sharma ceased being the holder of shares, either directly or indirectly, between his first and second parliamentary stint.
Under another section, he continues to disclose investments in four managed funds that were also on his previous interest register.
Senator Sharma declined to answer questions put to him by Sunraysia Daily.
Three weeks ago, in a speech calling for integrity and the restoration of trust in politicians, Senator Sharma told the Senate: “I would like to see public faith restored in elected office in our parliament.”
While in the Lower House, Senator Sharma disclosed shareholdings in the ETFS Battery Tech & Lithium and VanEck Global Clean Energy exchange-traded funds.
‘Activist’ purchase
LABOR Senator for NSW Tony Sheldon in August grilled Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce during a Senate select committee inquiry into air services, telling the then-boss “the credibility of Qantas has collapsed under your leadership”.
After Mr Joyce announced his departure on September 5, Senator Sheldon then called for Qantas chair Richard Goyder to follow. Mr Goyder shortly after announced an intention to step down later this year.
Within days, on September 13, Senator Sheldon declared he had bought shares in the airline.
Senator Sheldon told Crikey last month he bought the shares in order to become an activist shareholder, someone who purchases a shareholding in a company in order to pressure its management.
He said he had missed the 2023 annual general meeting only due to a scheduling conflict.
“With these shares, I now have direct access to shareholder information and meetings,” he was quoted as saying.
“After years of outsourcing and cost-cutting, Qantas is unrecognisable today from the Spirit of Australia it once was … As a shareholder and a senator, I look forward to holding the board to account.”
Going for woke
UNITED Australia Party Senator for Victoria Ralph Babet was the deputy chair of the air services Senate select committee.
Senator Babet put out a media release of questions he asked about Qantas and its relationship with the government, and separately in November condemned the airline for engaging in “woke-ism”.
He has claimed that companies that “go woke go broke”.
According to Senator Babet’s interest register, he is a Qantas shareholder.
Senator Babet did not respond to questions from Sunraysia Daily, including whether it was appropriate for a deputy chair of an inquiry into the aviation sector to own airline shares.
About nine in 10 federal politicians have declared receiving membership to the exclusive Qantas Chairman’s Lounge from the airline, according to Crikey.
MPs and senators must submit and update their register of interests, which are intended to place on the public record members’ interests which may conflict, or be seen to conflict, with their public duty.
Any alteration of interests must be lodged within 28 days for House members, or 35 days for senators.
