There is no substitute for sanctimonious greed.
A top-20 shareholder in Santos has raised questions about the oil and gas producer’s strategy and called for it to focus on delivering value to investors, just as the gas giant was forced to cut production guidance because of an eleventh-hour hitch at its biggest growth project.
HESTA chief executive Debby Blakey said the industry superannuation fund was “keeping a close eye” on developments at Santos, which she said had posed several questions for investors.
She referred to the collapse last month of the $36.4 billion takeover bid for Santos from a Middle Eastern oil giant, and the surprise and unexplained resignation of chief financial officer Sherry Duhe this week after barely 12 months in the role.
If this super fund can’t see what’s wrong at STO, then its members should leave.
HESTA promotes itself as making a “real world impact” with the clear implication of its working for the good of humanity on behalf of its health care workers. Yet here it is, backing the core player of the local gas cartel, whining about it being unable to sell itself to a petro-Arab monster.
The reason why is even worse. STO can’t sell itself because it is embedded so deeply in the local gas export cartel that everybody knows sooner or later it is going to be forced to stop buying third-party Australian gas and default on export contracts. This is a contingent liability that cannot be priced. Meanwhile, STO is a massive blockage in the Australian energy transition.
To wit.
Fresh from its backflip on superannuation tax reform, the Albanese government is now facing calls from the union movement to ditch its changes to taxes on oil and gas exports, in a move the ACTU says would raise $17 billion a year to be pumped into housing.
This masthead can reveal the peak union body believes the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT), which the government overhauled in its first term in a bid to raise more revenue from the impost, should be axed and replaced with a flat 25 per cent tax on all LNG exports.
If you add the extra $9bn being ripped out of eastern Australian households, not including businesses, via electricity bills versus 2015, then the gas export cartel is actually a net tax on the eastern economy.
HESTA is having a real-world impact, alright. Just not the one advertised.
