Does it sound any less ridiculous in Australia?

By Lethbridge Herald on December 4, 2025.

Chris Spearman
For the Herald

Imagine for a moment there is a Canadian oil exploration company named “Southfront Resources” with unlimited cash and is eager to drill for oil in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.

To gain local support, they add a koala and a kangaroo to their corporate logo and begin sponsoring cricket matches and Aussie Rules Football events. 

Even more endearing to the Australians, the Southfront CEO maintains he has deep Australian roots claiming his ancestors were on the early expeditions when Europeans discovered Australia and were proven members of Britain’s criminal export.

Initially, Southfront’s application for exploratory drilling in the Great Barrier Reef is rejected by a joint federal and state review panel. They challenge the joint panel decision in the Australian courts three times but lose each appeal.

 Southfront then changes tactics and begins using their unlimited financial resources to buy regulatory favour for their project hoping to prey on unethical politicians and a complacent public. 

In the past, they’ve had extensive success in Canada with “dark backroom” lobbying strategies to gain political influence. So they apply the same techniques in Australia. They hire former prime ministerial aides and former politicians with deep connections to the back rooms of the halls of power, and they pay millions to these mercenaries for access and influence — at the national, regional and local level.

The lobbying tactics work in Southfront’s favour. Policies forbidding oil exploration in the Great Barrier Reef are revoked by the state government opening the door for Southfront, and other Canadian oil speculators, to acquire exploration rights. 

This happens despite the state having recent and extensive scientific research reports documenting the environmental harm that would result from offshore oil drilling. The state and Southfront choose to ignore this documentation, or consider how the drilling would negatively impact the economy in the area.

Following a huge backlash of concern from Australians, the state then reverses their policy actions prompting the Canadian speculators to begin suing the state government for reverting back to the old policy,  believing large sums of money are now owed to them for this policy reversal.

The state government settles “out of court” with these companies, compensating them for three times what they spent to avoid having politicians testify in a court of law.

Public opinion continues to solidly oppose Southfront’s plans. 

But Southfront sees this as a no lose opportunity and increases their spending on initiatives directed at creasing political and community support, in the expectation that their costs will be reimbursed by taxpayers if their oil exploration is halted for any reason.

Southfront hires a reputable pollster and pays the full cost of conducting a poll designed to get results that appear to demonstrate majority support for oil exploration in the sensitive Great Barrier Reef. 

They double down on their marketing and messaging efforts to create a more favourable image. 

They increase support for local charities. They remind Australians of the many benefits to be gained from the oil extracted.

Southfront further insists that new oil exploration methods in the Great Barrier Reef can be done responsibly causing no harm to the environment. However, when questioned about how this can be done, or to provide an existing example,  they have no evidence to support that this has been done previously, or ever could be done.

Well, all of the above is, technically, a fiction—at least as it would relate to oil exploration off the coast of Australia.  It is provided for your reading pleasure, but it may provide a different context to some of what is happening in Canada.

Any similarity to what is currently occurring in Alberta with Northback Holdings and the Canadian Rockies might be coincidental.  Or not.  Albertans may need to ask some deep questions.

Chris Spearman is a former Lethbridge mayor and the spokesperson for the Water for Food group