Monash University Sponsored Climate Conference W. Oil & Gas Giant, Erased Event From Website, Then "No-Commented"

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Woodside acted as partner and co-host for the Italian conference, and provided travel grants to some staff and students to attend. Three Woodside employees, including its head of partnerships, were on the conference organising committee, and two attended. Tim Wilson – then a former Coalition MP, who went on to defeat the independent Zoe Daniel and reclaim the seat of Goldstein at last month’s federal election, was a keynote speaker.

According to Monash students and staff, the principal site page for the conference was removed soon after the event. Turner said it was “highly unusual for a conference to apparently be ‘covered up’, with the website deleted and no trace of papers presented to be found, a matter of weeks after the conference concluded”. He said Stop Woodside Monash had struggled to get answers from university management about the details of its arrangement with Woodside. An astrophysicist, Simon Campbell, also involved with the group, agreed it appeared the conference had been “deliberately hidden or covered up, since to take a website offline requires someone to actively do that”.

The Stop Woodside Monash campaign is backed by the university’s student association and the National Tertiary Education Union. Its Monash branch president, Ben Eltham, said the union had “deep concerns about the erosion of academic freedom in shadowy conferences paid for by fossil fuel corporations”, particularly at a university he credited with a strong track record on climate and environmental issues. “Once industry dictates the topics and framing of academic discourse, it’s no longer engagement – it’s simply PR,” Eltham said.

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Guardian Australia spoke to several staff, including some not involved with Stop Woodside Monash, who did not wish to be named for fear of professional retaliation or because they know researchers involved in the partnership. They said they were concerned about a lack of transparency from university leadership, risks to academic independence, the politicisation of the academy, and harm to Monash’s reputation for work in areas including climate, environment and ecology. “They [the university] are treating us like idiots, basically,” one said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/12/monash-staff-say-woodside-backed-climate-conference-highlights-concerns-about-energy-giant-partnership