Waubra Foundation – Australia’s secretive front group for polluting industries
The trick with astroturfers is to create a large number of so-called community groups to gain disproportionate media attention. Further investigation often finds these to be “phantom” organisations of just one person with often the same person representing multiple groups.
At the mere sniff of a proposed wind farm, media releases go out from “local”
Landscape Guardian groups. Paid advertisements call for public meetings. At these, the forces behind the climate sceptic movement in Australia, such as the Institute of Public Affairs’ Australian Environment Foundation, call on the by now familiar list of Guardians and its plentiful supporters amongst the Lavoisier Group, the Liberal Party and other sceptic groups to be bussed in. With the emphasis on silencing any pro-wind supporters at a meeting….
The ugly Landscape of the Guardians, Independent Australia, Sandi Keane, 24 July 11, “……..Wind Turbine Syndrome, according to the Waubra Foundation. Symptoms claimed include sleep problems, headaches, dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, irritability, depression, tinnitus, concentration problems – and a new one – children refusing to go to school!
The Foundation’s “medical director”, Sarah Laurie – a non-practicing, unregistered doctor – claims ‘infrasound’ from wind turbines is the culprit….
The Waubra “Foundation” — a front for the Landscape Guardians……. extraordinary claims made by the Waubra Foundation …..
A check on its Board members revealed that the Foundation was, not surprisingly, a front for the “Landscape Guardians” a powerful, well resourced and rapidly expanding anti-wind astroturf group. They model themselves on their successful older UK cousin, the nuclear-funded Country Guardians.
Peter Mitchell, Founder and Chair of the Waubra Foundation helped set up and fund the Australian Landscape Guardians and is also spokesman for the Western Plains Landscape Guardians……
Three Directors, all knee-deep in Landscape Guardian activities, signalled that the Foundation was not the “independent” organisation it claimed to be. ….
The Foundation has no physical address in Waubra and, indeed, appears to have no local Waubra resident on its Board. It boasts a “medical director”, Sarah Laurie, living in Crystal Book, South Australia. The address is Box No.1136, South Melbourne, 3205, the same address as that of the Australian Landscape Guardians and Peter Mitchell.
Dr. Michael Wooldridge, the former Howard minister is also listed as a Director.
Who are the Landscape Guardians, really?
Mitchell certainly has interests in the fossil fuel industry. These include founding Chairman of the Moonie Oil Company Ltd. and Chairman or a Director of related companies including Clyde Petroleum plc, Avalon Energy Inc, North Flinders Mines Ltd, Paringa Mining & Exploration plc (most now delisted on the ASX),
According to Lowell Resources Funds Management Pty Ltd, Mitchell’s experience is derived from over 25 years’ involvement in companies that explored for, developed and financed gold and base metal mines, oil and gas fields and pipeline systems in Australia and overseas……
Climate scepticism — the litany of the Guardians Climate scepticism (usually translated into “support for Big Carbon”) is a monotonous litany of the Guardians……
The secrecy of the Landscape Guardians Like the Landscape Guardians, the Waubra Foundation is highly secretive. There is no information about its funding or sponsorship……..
No other media in Australia has run a more distorted and dishonest scare campaign about wind farms than the Murdoch media…..
Who funds the Guardians? Shining a light on the Guardian’s murky funding pool is a challenge……
There are around 26 listed Guardian “groups” in Australia having spread from Victoria to NSW, then Queensland and now South Australia. What a little cross referencing will reveal is that there is a core cabal of people whose names pop up time and time again as office bearer or representative of either the “Molongo”, “McHarg”, Spa Country” or “NSW” Landscape Guardians and so on.
The trick with astroturfers is to create a large number of so-called community groups to gain disproportionate media attention. Further investigation often finds these to be “phantom” organisations of just one person with often the same person representing multiple groups – as, indeed, we have already seen. Whether they are all run from a central office is hard to tell since no-one has discovered the whereabouts of the Guardians’ bunker.
The Guardians’ modus operandi is simple and devastatingly effective. At the mere sniff of a proposed wind farm, media releases go out from “local” Landscape Guardian groups. Paid advertisements call for public meetings. At these, the forces behind the climate sceptic movement in Australia, such as the Institute of Public Affairs’ Australian Environment Foundation, call on the by now familiar list of Guardians and its plentiful supporters amongst the Lavoisier Group, the Liberal Party and other sceptic groups to be bussed in. With the emphasis on silencing any pro-wind supporters at a meeting, these undoubtedly include some of the uglier mobster element we saw at the anti-carbon rally in Canberra.
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