Herd on the Terrace: Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest sets Fortescue Metals Group above the pack in climate battle

This item is being written for future historians who will look back later this century at greenwashing and half-hearted attempts to deal with climate change. It comes thanks to Fortescue Metals Group’s iron ore billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, who readers will recall is punting shareholder squillions on the success of unproven green hydrogen technology. Twiggy claimed at the opening of Fortescue’s new Iron Bridge project earlier this week that the new magnetite iron ore mine would become one of his group’s first fossil fuel-free operations. When a cynical reporter asked the visionary whether he was talking years or decades, he started a sermon that Fortescue engineers may come to regret. “Oh my god, what is this, a 2050 thing,” he asked rhetorically. “2050 we’re all cooked, 2050 is a joke. “2050 is just saying ‘leave it to the kids, I don’t care’, ‘I don’t care what happens so long as I get my bonus’.” “2050 is just going to be written down by history as a cop out.” Let’s not forget that Fortescue has unveiled ambitious plans to spend almost $10 billion on eliminating fossil fuel use and becoming a zero-net emissions business by 2030. Here’s hoping the Fortescue team can put their brainpower where the boss’s mouth is. Hale to the Forrest fortune Further to our item two weeks ago about Forrest agreeing to give a dollar-for-dollar matching contribution at an online fundraiser being run by Hale School for hall renovations and its new drama centre. After setting a target of $600,000 for donations from other people, the tally ran over $700,000 as more than 450 people responded to an opportunity to shave a whisker off Forrest’s $20b-plus fortune. That translates to $700,000 that might otherwise be spent on fuel for Forrest’s environmentally unfriendly Airbus helicopters and his Pangea Ocean Explorer diesel drinker. Good for Hale, good for the planet. Clive raises self in Mineralogy change You’d think that Clive Palmer would have a special place in his overworked heart for the name Mineralogy. After all, this is the company that helped turn him from being just another battling Banana Bender into a resources billionaire. But the Bull was genuinely shocked this week after seeing a corporate filing. Palmer is planning to change the name of Mineralogy to The Clive Group. Yes, dear reader, that’s right: Not just any Clive Group, but The Clive Group. This is the company through which Palmer now pockets about $1 million a day of royalties from the Sino Iron magnetite project developed by Chinese group CITIC on Mineralogy’s Balmoral tenements. We understand the proposed big new name suits the big man’s persona, but we doubt about its suitability after attending a legally and financially complex Supreme Court blue this week. Veteran iron ore geologist Shanker Madan is pushing for a cut of Mineralogy’s Balmoral fortune as the bloke who claims to have dished the Pilbara dirt up to Mr Palmer 37 years ago in return for some allegedly unfulfilled promises. While the case has a long way to go, we’re not convinced The Shanker Clive Group would sound quite right if things really went Madan’s way in the Supreme Court. Given Palmer owns the Coolum golf course that is tough for shankers, we think Mineralogy is much safer. Great Scott, Mendelow and Zusman caught up in blue And here’s one to put on your watchlist. A curious conflagration started by retired lawyer Scott Thillagaratnam is engulfing barristers Paul Mendelow and Darren Zusman, as well as mid-tier law firms Haydn Robinson and Bennett. It includes two Supreme Court actions by Thillagaratnam and two appeals to the State Administrative Tribunal over WA legal regulators having rejected his complaints. Zusman asked Justice Paul Tottle for orders that legal submissions made by Thillagaratnam be uplifted from court files, saying they contained “a whole lot of scandalous material”. But Thillagaratnam said the content of his submissions “is backed by solid evidence.” And like in a courtroom drama, Zusman arose and uttered objection when Thillagaratnam said his submissions related to “how Mr Zusman gave false evidence”. Ruling in Zusman’s favour, Justice Tottle told Scott that any serious allegations should be filed as evidence and not as submissions. “You should only make allegations of a serious thing if you have a solid foundation in fact,” he said. We’ll try to keep you posted.