“What Absolute BS:” Forrest calls out coal lobby as diesel fuel tax debate intensifies

Andrew Forrest has clapped back at Coal Australia after the fossil fuel lobby group accused the Fortescue founder and “real zero” maverick of “grandstanding and virtue signalling” over his major media campaign urging government to strip big miners of diesel tax rebates. 

Fortescue, which aims to reach “real zero” emissions at its mines by 2030, if not earlier, using renewables and electric transport and mining equipment, last week launched a series of radio, television and online ads calling for a “sensible cap” on the Fuel Tax Credit (FTC) scheme.

Fortescue points to research that shows Australia’s 18 largest miners were the recipients of about one-third of the $11 billion in diesel fuel rebates returned to businesses this year through the FTC – Fortescue included.

“We are not talking about small miners, explorers, farmers, truck drivers or tradies,” Fortescue CEO Dino Otranto said in a statement last week ahead of the launch of the campaign.

“This diesel tax handout is meant to support essential industries, not deliver outsized benefits to the biggest players.

“At a time when families are cutting back and small businesses are doing it tough, it is reasonable to ask whether this is the best use of taxpayer money. This is billions of dollars that could be used to lower energy costs for households and businesses right now.”

In LinkedIn post published on Tuesday last week, Coal Australia described the claims as “false” and the timing of the campaign as “dreadful,” and a “classic case of sensible policy and logic being lost in the fog of grandstanding and virtue signalling.”

Forrest, not one to shy away from a fight, takes to the comments to respond to the industry group’s post.

“What absolute BS,” he writes here.

“Coal Australia lecturing anyone on ‘sensible policy’ is laughable. This is an industry clinging to a fading business model while the world moves on without it.

In 2025, renewables overtook coal because they’re cheaper, faster and smarter.”

Indeed, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Energy Review last week revealed that, in 2025, solar contributed the largest structural increase ever recorded in a single year for any electricity generation technology, and helped renewables outpace coal growth for the first time. 

And in a separate report, analyst outfit Ember Energy noted that the record amount of new solar generation capacity added in 2025 was sufficient to displace the gas-fired electricity equivalent to all LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz in the same year, estimated at 550 TWh. 

For fossil fuels, meanwhile, the share of coal and gas-fired generation fell to 57.4 per cent, globally, down from 66.5 per cent in 2015. This was the first year since 2020 without an increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels and only the fifth year without a rise this century.

In Australia, Fortescue is not alone in pushing reforms to diesel fuel rebates that would help drive industrial decarbonisation and funnel government money to other more worthy causes.

A landmark report from think tank Climate Energy Finance last year showed the FTC scheme is now a top 20 budget expense but most of it goes to major local and foreign resources companies. 

In FY24, the top 15 diesel users burned nearly 6 billion litres and received $2.9 billion in tax credits, as Renew Economy reported last week. This year, the total bill for the FTC is $11 billion and that will rise over time, as the 51.6c/litre rebate is linked to inflation and as the mining sector grows. 

Climate Energy Finance analyst Matt Pollard expects it to hit $13 billion in 2030. 

Pollard instead recommended an alternative transition idea – the big miners can still get their credits over $50 million, provided they make equal or greater investments in decarbonisation. 

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