‘Sloppy’, ‘misleading’, and funded by whom? Anti-renewable group under fire at Senate misinformation inquiry

The anti-renewable group Rainforest Reserves Australia (RRA) faced intense scrutiny at this week’s Senate inquiry into climate integrity on climate and energy, with senators probing whether the self-described conservation charity has been misleading communities and spreading inaccurate claims.

They also wanted to know if the group – represented at the hearing by former ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann – had received undisclosed financial support to oppose renewable energy projects across regional Australia and to fund its campaigns.

The Senate committee is attempting to shine light on a growing ecosystem of community groups, advocacy outfits and think-tanks lobbying against renewable infrastructure and the broader energy transition.

The groups often have opaque funding structures, digital campaigning tools, and messaging that echoes long-running climate denialist narratives. 

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which also appeared at the inquiry, refused to reveal its funders on Wednesday. Rainforest Reserves Australia was only marginally more forthcoming.

Rainforest Reserves Australia was accompanied by self described freelance journalist Chris Uhlmann, who stepped into the role of advocate rather than reporter and intervened at times to deflect scrutiny from the group as questions mounted about fictitious references and opaque funding.

Petitions, submissions and fabricated references

Much of the hearing centred on RRA’s high-profile campaign against the Moonlight Range wind farm, a $1 billion project the Queensland government cancelled earlier this year (although it has since sought a green tick from the federal government). RRA created an online petition and submission portal to drive opposition to the project.

Labor Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah pressed RRA vice-president Stephen Nowakowski about how many of the objections submitted through RRA’s platform came from people who actually lived near the proposed site.

“No idea,” Nowakowski replied. “Put it this way. I objected to the Franklin River Dam as well. That’s not in my area.” He was asked – firmly – to take the question on notice.

The senator then turned to a more serious issue: whether RRA’s own submission opposing the project relied on fabricated or non-existent evidence.

“You have 15 references,” she said. “Seven of them—over 50%—are completely false. Can you explain why?”

Nowakowski’s response: “I didn’t write it … this is just a distraction from the major issue.”

But Ananda-Rajah rejected that defence, arguing that accuracy goes to the heart of RRA’s credibility: “You cite the Oakey wind farm contamination report, the EPA 2018 report. But there is no EPA in Queensland. There is also no Oakey wind farm. Is that right?”

RRA would not confirm or deny, and took the question on notice, later conceding that  “minor factual corrections may be necessary in any large, evolving data set,” and insisting its broader claims about environmental damage from renewable projects remained “accurate and verifiable.”

The Senator asked RRA to table its full submission to the Queensland government—again, taken on notice and asked whether the Queensland government had contacted RRA to clarify the questionable information prior to cancelling the project.

Nowakowski: “I can’t answer that, not to my knowledge.”

Did false claims help kill a $1 billion-project?

Ananda-Rajah then fired another direct question: “Are you concerned a $1 billion wind farm may have been cancelled under false pretences?”

Nowakowski was emphatic: “Absolutely not. There’s a very strong community there… they did that independently, and we support them.”

But when the senator suggested RRA itself may have misled that community, given its fabricated references, Uhlmann interjected.

“I’m interested in the prosecution of an organisation which just wants to keep trees in the ground over errors,” he said. “You’re accusing a community organisation of disinformation for making an error.”

He then attempted to steer the discussion onto unrelated political territory, invoking Labor’s pre-election modelling of a $275 drop in electricity prices. The exchange became heated, with parts inaudible, and Ananda-Rajah concluding with a stinging assessment:

“I think your work has been sloppy. I think it undermines your own credibility… You have undermined your own credibility by making submissions falsifying evidence to a Queensland department, which has led to the cancellation of a wind farm.”

Who funds RRA’s campaigns?

The committee also probed how RRA finances its increasingly expansive anti-renewables activism.

RRA describes itself as a volunteer group originally focused on tree-planting, but Nowakowski said it shifted direction after becoming aware of “vast numbers of renewable projects that are steamrolling right through regional Australia.”

He claimed the group is funded through “private donations” from regional communities who “have been reaching out … and they donate.”

But the senators were sceptical – particularly about the scale of RRA’s recent advocacy, including full-page ads in nine major newspapers and a widely circulated open letter arguing Australia must rethink renewable energy and embrace nuclear.

Asked who funded the advertising blitz, Nowakowski launched into what he called the “back story”: that RRA believes nuclear is “the best way to reduce our carbon emissions,” and that “people out there in the community have admired our stance.”

Pressed further, he admitted some of the signatories to the open letter provided financial support—but would not confirm whether high-profile signatories like nuclear advocate Dick Smith or coal magnate Trevor St Baker contributed.

Then came the question about who bankrolled RRA’s legal challenge against the Commonwealth’s approval of the Gawara Baya wind farm.

Nowakowski froze before a colleague intervened to say it was funded by “an anonymous private individual”, while adding it was “not linked to fossil fuel interests or nuclear.” 

A growing voice in conservative media

Rainforest Reserves Australia has become a favourite among conservative commentators and sympathetic media outlets, casting itself as an environmental defender resisting “industrialisation” by wind and solar projects.

But their appearance at the Senate inquiry exposed major problems: inaccurate claims, fictitious references, vagueness about authorship, confusion about its funding sources, and evasiveness under questioning.

For a Senate committee examining misinformation, astroturfing, and the forces shaping public opinion on renewable energy, the RRA appearance was instructive—not least because it raised more questions than it answered.

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