Gina Rinehart-backed Lakes Oil loses bid to have Victorian fracking ban overturned

A company part-owned by Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart has failed to have the Victorian government’s fracking ban overturned or to be awarded $2.7bn in damages.

 Victoria’s supreme court rejected Lakes Oil’s claims, finding
 the legislation banned all petroleum exploration work.

Between 2002 and 2013 two subsidiaries of Lakes Oil, of which Rinehart is the second-largest shareholder, obtained four exploration permits and two retention leases under Victoria’s Petroleum Act 1998. A retention lease grants the right to any petroleum discovered during the permit period.

Some of the petroleum exploration intended by the Lakes Oil involved hydraulic fracking, a technique used to extract unconventional gas found in coal seams, shales and tight sandstones. The companies also planned to explore for conventional gas.

Read the story by Melissa Davey from The Guardian - “Gina Rinehart-backed Lakes Oil loses bid to have Victorian fracking ban overturned.”

Gina questions reporting on climate change



Gina Rinehart.

Gina Rinehart has argued that the ABC’s Four Corners has mishandled its coverage of climate change in a recent report.

The mining magnate, according to “Climate Spectator”, has found space in her schedule to lambast climate change journalism in Australia.

In a story headed: TheRinehart dig at climate journalism – discussed a letter responding to questions raised on the ABC’s Four Corners program earlier this week, the head of Hancock Prospecting contended the media was guilty of publishing “climate extremists’” views and ignoring facts.

Climate change denialists and the media

Interesting piece by Robert Manne in The Monthly entitled “Lord Monckton and the Future of Australian Media” that tells about the intrigue between one of the most extreme climate change denialists, Monckton, and the Australian coal and iron ore billionaire, Gina Rinehart.

Christopher Monckton

Rinehart, now one of the wealthiest people on the globe and the devoted daughter of the Western Australian mining magnate, the late Lang Hancock, one of the most right-wing Australians of the postwar era, has bought her way into Fairfax Media (14 per cent) and television’s, Channel 10 (10 per cent).

Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University and has twice been voted Australia's leading public intellectual. He is the author of Left, Right, Left: Political Essays, 1977-2005 and Making Trouble.