How the fossil fuel lobby captured a landmark Labor policy

The practice known as data washing is a particularly insidious form of disinformation, says Claire Snyder, “because it’s so hard to spot”.

The director of the group Climate Integrity says she did spot it, however, in the government’s Future Gas Strategy, released in May last year.

That signature policy, which supports the expansion of gas production through to 2050, drew heavily on a submission from fossil fuel lobbyists Australian Energy Producers – which in turn drew heavily on research from the leading consultancy firm EY.

It is deeply flawed research, according to analysis by experts at University of Technology Sydney. It illustrates, Snyder says, not only the shortcomings of EY’s report, but how consultants can dazzle policymakers with arcane modelling and data in order to advance the causes of their paymasters.

Data washing is a practice whereby vested interests engage consultants to produce allegedly independent technical analysis and thereby provide “a veil of credibility, which they exploit to lobby parliamentarians and the broader public, distorting the framing of policy debates,” Snyder says.

“The material produced by these big consultancy firms is often widely accepted as fact, reported as fact, you know, referenced by politicians, media, et cetera,” she says.

The more complex the issue, the more susceptible it is, for very few people have the time or capacity to re-examine the findings. And no issue is more complex than dealing with climate change.

The EY report was prepared for AEP two years ago, to provide what the oil and gas industry peak body called “an independent assessment of the future role of natural gas in Australia and the region”. AEP commissioned it in response to an invitation in October 2023 from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources to join the consultation process for the Albanese government’s Future Gas Strategy.

The following month, AEP produced its submission, along with a media release that trumpeted the findings of EY’s assessment under the headline, “New gas supply needed in all net zero pathways: EY report”.

The release claimed EY had “examined around 350 net zero pathways around the world”, and come up with three potential future scenarios, all of which required the continued use of large quantities of gas to 2050 – when Australia is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero – and beyond.

Any ordinary person attempting to read the report would quickly be flummoxed by the references to 350 pathways.

EY’s three scenarios were, however, apparently simple distillations. Even under the least fossil-fuel intensive of its three scenarios – the “electrify” scenario, in which there was a rapid rollout of renewables equal to “20 times current levels” – demand for gas would decline only about 40 per cent by 2050.

Under the second scenario, in which renewables were rolled out somewhat less rapidly, gas demand in 2050 would stand at 86 per cent of current production. Under the third, so-called “capture” scenario, gas demand would go up 30 per cent.

When the government’s Future Gas Strategy was released six months later, it picked up much of the language of the EY/AEP submission, although it did not commit specifically to any of the lobby’s scenarios.

“EY created what they call a global net zero scenario dataset, and they claim in that to have analysed around 350 pathways, and present those as aligned with net zero by 2050 and consistent with the Paris Agreement. When we looked at the IPCC database … 134 of the scenarios they cited don’t exist.”

In her foreword to the report, Resources Minister Madeleine King – who is something of a fossil fuel evangelist – wrote: “The … findings are clear. Under all credible net zero scenarios, natural gas is needed through to 2050 and beyond … We need continued investment in, and development of, gas supply and transport infrastructure.”

The gas lobby was pleased. People and organisations concerned about global climate change, and Australia’s outsized contribution to the problem, were appalled. Gas production and domestic use accounts for about 24 per cent of total greenhouse emissions in this country, and Australia is among the top three exporters of gas.

The Climate Council, for example, slammed the Future Gas Strategy as “a regressive echo” of the Morrison government’s “gas-led recovery”.

When in opposition, Labor railed against the former government’s embrace of gas. Now it had adopted a near-identical position.

The response of Snyder’s Climate Integrity group was to commission its own experts, from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, to examine the EY analysis.

They found, she says, a range of “misrepresentations and flaws” in the way the EY report created the three gas scenarios. The report made those scenarios appear as if they were “compatible with net zero and compatible with Paris,” Snyder says, referring to the international climate accord, under which countries including Australia aim to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees.

“They also overestimated the capacity of carbon capture and storage, when it’s clearly unproven,” she says.

EY, Snyder says, “created what they call a global net zero scenario dataset, and they claim in that to have analysed around 350 pathways, and present those as aligned with net zero by 2050 and consistent with the Paris Agreement.

“When we looked at the IPCC database … 134 of the scenarios they cited don’t exist.”

According to the UTS research, the EY report “skews the data to make these higher gas scenarios appear to be consistent with net zero by 2050 and Paris,” says Snyder.

For the non-scientists reading EY’s research, there is reason to suspect the modelling was at least wildly optimistic about the ways by which gas industry emissions might be abated.

The report says carbon capture and storage is necessary under all scenarios if Australia is to meet its net zero target. It paints a rosy picture of the controversial technology and claims: “Australia has some of the world’s most advanced CCUS [carbon capture utilisation and storage] projects, including the Gorgon project.”

If Gorgon – the world’s largest CCS project, located at Chevron’s liquefied natural gas facility on Barrow Island, Western Australia – is the best example to cite, that in itself is telling.

The project was approved on the basis it would capture 80 per cent of emissions associated with gas extraction and inject them back underground. It has been bedevilled by technical problems.

Gorgon was supposed to begin operating in 2016 but fell three years behind schedule. In its first four years of operation, it captured only about 44 per cent of emissions and, on Chevron’s own data, is performing worse over time. According to the most recent data, from 2023/24, it sequestered just 30 per cent of the CO2.

As the UTS/ISF report noted, CCS is far from being the “proven and deployable” technological panacea EY has claimed.

“In 2024, CCUS managed to capture … just 11 hours of 2024’s total global emissions of CO2,” the researchers noted. Most of that was pumped into wells to force more oil out – thus actually making the problem worse.

Curiously, the name of the author did not appear on the EY report. Two sources at EY, as well as Climate Integrity, said it was in part the work of former EY partner Steve Brown. The Saturday Paper is not suggesting Brown is responsible for inaccuracies in the report.

When contacted by The Saturday Paper, Brown would neither confirm nor deny that he was involved.

“It’s an EY publication. If you’ve got any questions, you’ll have to go back to EY,” he said.

Brown is no longer with EY, having left in June and joined the multinational financial and risk advisory firm Kroll, as managing director of the firm’s economic advisory practice, based in Sydney.

Asked about the circumstances of his change of employment, he says simply, “better job”.

In 2015, Brown and several colleagues left Deloitte Access Economics to set up their own consulting firm, Cadence Economics.

In 2018, Cadence produced work for Master Builders Australia, predicting dire consequences if the Labor Party’s proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax were implemented.

The policy would have limited negative gearing to new housing and halved the CGT discount that benefited wealthy property owners.

According to the Cadence report, the changes would result in 42,000 fewer properties being built, 32,000 fewer full-time jobs, and up to $11.8 billion less building activity.

The Cadence report was hotly disputed. Numerous reputable analysts – such as former Grattan Institute economist Danielle Wood, who is now head of the Productivity Commission – argued the proposed changes would be largely beneficial, improve equity and tax receipts and increase home ownership rates.

The Cadence report became a major part of the Coalition’s campaign against Labor in the 2019 election. Labor lost and subsequently dumped the policies, so we will never know how accurate or otherwise was Cadence’s scenario.

Only about a month after the election, Cadence was acquired by EY, bringing some clients, including Master Builders, with it. Brown was made an EY partner.

In the midst of the 2022 election campaign, he produced another piece of work for Master Builders Australia. This time, his report said Labor’s plan to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission would cost the economy as much as $47.5 billion in lost productivity.

The Australian Financial Review took issue with Brown’s numbers. The article also recalled scathing comments from the chief judge of the New South Wales Land and Environment Court, Brian Preston, in 2019 about the economic case Brown had mounted to support a proposed coalmine at Rocky Hill.

EY holds different positions on the future use of fossil fuels in different reports for different audiences.

Unlike the work it did for Australian Energy Producers, the recent EY report “Why 2035 is the climate target that counts: Eight keys to achieve net zero” prominently displays the names of its three authors – and includes quotes from each of them urging corporates to act. It also notes, “Science-based guidance suggests companies in advanced economies aim for a 75–100% reduction in fossil fuel emissions by 2035.”

Says Snyder, “I think [it] is important that EY, as a company, has a really clear commitment to net zero and the Paris Agreement, yet they’re working with the fossil fuel lobby, providing research to support fossil fuel expansion.

“If you’re going to make a commitment publicly to your stakeholders, to your investors, to your staff and to your customers, that you’re committed to net zero and the Paris Agreement – that has to mean something.”

Climate Integrity, through its legal representatives at the Environmental Defenders Office, has written to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, asking that it investigate various claims made in the AEP submission, and in the EY report that underpinned it. The letter asks whether “certain representations made by Australian Energy Producers (AEP) in relation to future East Coast gas demand and the deployment, cost and scalability of Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and its capacity to reduce emissions are misleading or deceptive, or likely to mislead or deceive, in contravention of s18 of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

“In the event that the ACCC finds that AEP contravened s18, our client further requests that the ACCC investigate whether Ernst & Young (EY) was an accessory to AEP’s contravention,” it says.

The ACCC has recently stressed a focus on so-called “greenwashing” claims by industry that could mislead consumers. The referral in relation to the gas lobby’s claims, however, is somewhat different, in that it relates to processes of government policy formulation rather than dodgy corporate claims directed at consumers.

The ACCC has not indicated whether it has taken the matter up for investigation, or whether it will.

Climate Integrity also made a submission to a Senate inquiry into misinformation and disinformation about climate change.

The chair of the recently established Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, the Greens’ Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, tells us the inquiry will investigate the claims of data washing. He says no decision has yet been made about whether AEP or EY will be called before the committee.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
October 18, 2025 as “How the fossil fuel lobby captured a landmark Labor policy”.

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How the fossil fuel lobby captured a landmark Labor policy

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