The Dirty Secret of the Teal Movement

The more a man loudly proclaims his honesty, as Judith Collins once said, the more you should check your pockets. When it comes to ‘integrity’, the Teals do protesteth too much – and walketh far too little.

‘Hypocrisy’ doesn’t begin to describe the Teals. Whether it’s pontificating about political donations while trousering millions from a uselessly idle and rich nepo baby, bellowing to ‘wear your mask’ while conspicuously not wearing one or shrieking about ‘carbon emissions’ while driving gas-guzzling SUVs and scarfing as many business class airfares as they can bilk out of the taxpayer.

Or blatherskiting about ‘integrity’ while your puppet-master runs a bogus charity that guzzles cash from modern-day slavers.

A Labor-linked climate charity has been receiving thousands of dollars from clean-energy firms black-listed in the United States over concerns they use slave labour, with the green lobby group and its senior adviser, Simon Holmes a Court, having visited a Chinese company accused of forced labour practices.

I’m sure they saw as little as Wernher von Braun did, as all those emaciated and bruised Jews trudged into his factory from the concentration camp every day.

As for its claim to be a “charity”...

The Australian Solar Energy Society – trading as the Smart Energy Council – operates as a registered charity, despite accusing Peter Dutton of being “vitriolic” and a “gas guzzler” with “nightmare nuclear policies”.

Australian Electoral Commission data also shows the organisation – which has boasted board directors from Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court to former Labor minister Terri Butler – donated to Australian Labor Party as recently as 2023–24, when it handed over $42,000, and in 2021–22 when it donated $29,000.

Board members currently listed on the SEC site include Oliver Yates, the 2019 independent for Kooyong backed by Mr Holmes a Court, and Taryn Lane, who works for the wind farm founded in 2007 by Mr Holmes a Court.

All of which seems to put it at odds with the law, as the coalition have pointed out in a letter to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.

The Charities Act 2013 states that ‘promoting or opposing a political party or a candidate for political office’ is a ‘disqualifying purpose’ for a charity. Clearly this pattern of providing financial support to the Australian Labor Party indicates such a purpose.

But it’s its links to slavery and concentration camps in China which are really damning.

The Australian can reveal a number of the SEC’s sponsors and 2025 conference exhibitors – including major solar panel manufacturer Jinko Solar – have been embroiled in allegations over forced labour and “the oppression of minority groups” including Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region.

SEC members including Mr Holmes a Court – an adviser and former board member of the charity – appear in photos posted by Jinko in 2019 capturing a visit by an Australian delegation “led by the SEC” to one of its factories in Shangrao.

Within three years of that visit, the company was raided by the US Department of Homeland Security and some of its shipments seized under the Uighur Forced Labor Protection Act. Two years ago, Jinko Solar was assessed by Sheffield Hallam University as having “high exposure” to state-imposed forced labour upon the Uighur community and other minorities.

Still, Jinko Solar denies any suggestion of forced labour practices – or, in common parlance, “slavery”.

Well, hey, if you can’t trust a Chinese company, who can you trust?

But it’s not just Jinko on the list of very naughty boys little Simon’s “charity” is happy to take money from.

The same Sheffield Hallam University paper identified other companies linked to the SEC as having “high exposure” to forced labour, including SEC “gold partner” JA Solar, which donates more than $6500 each year to the climate charity in exchange for an “insiders’ communication channel” with SEC staff via WhatsApp and advocacy events including Parliament House visits.

A 2024 Horizon Advisory report noted executives of JA Solar and Trina Solar – which was an SEC 2025 conference exhibitor – “have influential positions in the Chinese political and party landscape”.

JA Solar was also added to the US forced labour prevention list this year, banning it from shipping goods to the country.

And that’s just for starters.

Another sponsor contributing thousands of dollars a year to the SEC, battery manufacturer Alpha ESS, is owned by predominantly Chinese interests including EVE Energy, which in 2024 was found by human rights group Globalworks to have “contributed to state-imposed forced labour and land evictions”.

Hillhouse – another ALPHA ESS shareholder – is also a top investor in Yitu Technology, which in 2019 was black-listed by the US Department of Commerce for its “implication in human rights violations and abuses”.

Alpha’s SEC titanium sponsorship, worth more than $20,000 a year, gives the company access to “specialist advisory services” and policy intelligence briefings by the SEC.

All that adds up to a river of tainted blood-money for the Teals’ Svengali.

According to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, most of the SEC’s income comes from conferences and sponsorship, making up $2.9m of its $8m in revenue in 2024 – up from $2.4m in 2023.

Yet, the SEC has the barefaced chutzpah to smugly declare that it “is committed to working with its members and suppliers to establish and maintain ethical, sustainable and socially responsible operations and supply chains”.

That’s the Climate Cult for you: if they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any.