Shift2Neutral’s Brett Goldsworthy interviewed on Today Tonight Adelaide

On 28 March 2011, Australian TV station Today Tonight Adelaide broadcast a programme about Shift2Neutral and the company’s chairman Brett Goldsworthy. Paul Makin, a journalist with Today Tonight Adelaide interviewed Brett Goldsworthy in his office in a shopping centre in Westleigh, a suburb of Sydney.

“Brett Goldsworthy is a one-man band of sorts,” says Makin in the programme.

The programme focuses on Shift2Neutral’s activities in the Philippines, which started in May 2009, when Shift2Neutral announced that it had signed an “Agreement with the Tribal Coalition Of Mindanao Incorporated to supply certification services of indigenous rainforest land on the Island of Mindanao Philippines.” Since then, Goldsworthy claims to have signed REDD-type deals in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Brazil, although in the programme Goldsworthy only mentions projects in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, in addition to the Philippines.

The programme can be viewed on Today Tonight Adelaide’s website (scroll down and click on “Carbon Credits” in the bar on the left) and REDD-Monitor has produced a transcript of the programme, posted below.

Carbon Credits

Broadcast on Today Tonight Adelaide, 28 March 2011

Presenter: Good evening and welcome to the programme. First tonight it’s an international trading scheme designed to prevent global warming, but the lucrative business has produced a first class con. We’ve busted Brett Goldsworthy selling bogus carbon credits to South Aussies and people all over the world. And Paul Makin’s seven month investigation has also uncovered a billion dollar scam that’s duping naive native tribes.

Paul Makin: Brett! How are you? Paul Makin from Today Tonight. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions if I can.

Brett Goldsworthy: Hi Paul. How are you?

Paul Makin: I’m good.

Robert Hick: The man is a compulsive liar, cheat and fraud. And he has been getting away with it for years.

Vic Vidal: Broken promises… that’s why we are mad to him.

Paul Makin: Obviously you’re not comfortable with cameras or any of this publicity.

Brett Goldsworthy: I’m camera shy. [laughs]

Indigenous Person: We have to stop him! We have to stop him!

Brett Goldsworthy: I’d like to turn off the camera for the moment.

Paul Makin: Meet Brett Goldsworthy.

Robert Hick: Very well met. Very smooth.

Paul Makin: But beware. Despite first impressions, all that glitters is not Goldsworthy.

Robert Hick: Very good talker but totally unreliable.

Brett Goldsworthy: We’ve had death threats made against us. My family and myself.

Paul Makin: For what reason?

Brett Goldsworthy: For the extortion.

Paul Makin: All part of the bizarre world of Mr. Goldsworthy and his billion dollar venture into the business bonanza of the millenium. Carbon credits.

Brett Goldsworthy: We’ve got a programme going on in Malaysia, we’ve got a programme going on in Indonesia. We have one that’s starting in the Solomons.

Paul Makin: Carbon credits allow a company to offset its carbon emissions by purchasing credits from communities or businesses whose activities reduce carbon pollution. A potential godsend for impoverished rainforest tribes.

Brett Goldsworthy: If we can go up there and make a difference, that’s how I am.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy saw the future, created a company called Shift2Neutral and set himself up as a carbon credit trader.

Brett Goldsworthy: We work with certification groups around the world whether it be for using their standard or we set up our own certification standard.

Robert Hick: No one has certified his credits that he has authorised to certify them. He does it himself. It’s no different to counterfeiting money.

Paul Makin: And Robert Hick should know. He partnered Brett Goldsworthy in what seemed a dream scheme.

Robert Hick: It left me with debts, damaged reputation in the Philippines.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy promised riches to Robert and the poor tribes of Mindanao, guaranteeing them prosperity and preserving their jungle habitat, some 1.7 million hectares, rather than by mining it or selling off the timber.

Vic Vidal: Where is the money he promised?

Paul Makin: Vic Vidal is the chairman of a coalition of the 13 tribes.

Vic Vidal: [showing photographs] These are . . . these are the problems in our mountains. These are the problems that we need to be protected.

Robert Hick: That carbon credit money was to be used for building schools and hospitals and get them out of poverty. They are extremely poor.

Paul Makin: This way everybody wins. Or do they?

Brett Goldsworthy: They are the ones who are actually the people who will get the benefit out of the carbon credits.

Paul Makin: And to get the tribes on side, apart from promises, Brett arrived bearing plastic trinkets.

Indigenous Person: We believe because we see tall man white, white from West he a rich man and so we believe him immediately.

Robert Hick: He issued them with credit cards to all the tribal leaders with no money in their account.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy claimed that his carbon credits were certified by the World Bank.

Robert Hick: The big thing was he promised and showed us that he was certified to generate carbon credits from the protection of forest.

Vic Vidal: Yeah he told us that he has clearance from the World Bank.

Paul Makin: But the World Bank drew a blank.

Voice over: [reading from email from Neeraj Prasad at the World Bank] We don’t have any association with the “Shift2Neutral” company and do not endorse any transactions made or being considered by this company.

Paul Makin: Just a simple misunderstanding, according to Brett.

Brett Goldsworthy: There was a situation on our website where we had some wording in relationship to a protocol. We’ve taken that wording off with the World Bank and that’s where it ends.

Paul Makin: The World Bank are happy now?

Brett Goldsworthy: Yeah.

Robert Hick: The words that were on his website that he had to remove was claiming to be licensed or certified by the World Bank. Which again is a total untruth.

Paul Makin: Of course, if Goldsworthy was able to pull off this complex deal, he stood to make a fortune in fees.

Robert Hick: A lot of money. The project would have been a billion dollar project, of which half would have gone to Goldsworthy, of which I would have got a percentage of. The other half would have gone to the tribes.

Paul Makin: Alarm bells first began ringing when one of Goldsworthy’s hired consultants, Steve [sic] Bech, was asked to meet the Shift2Neutral team flying into the Philippines.

Chris Bech: They said our boss Brett Goldsworthy only bought us a one-way ticket. He could not afford more.

Paul Makin: Understandably Bech smelled a rat with this budget approach to a proposed billion dollar business.

Chris Bech: And then we discovered that this team of ten people, they had no money, no funds. Not at all.

Paul Makin: Chris, you gave them money and food?

Chris Bech: Yes, I had to shore all their expenses for one month, included the plane tickets back.

Paul Makin: Robert too got a bad feeling when Goldsworthy started sounding off. Like he was in a Rambo movie.

Robert Hick: When he claimed to have a boatload of commandos waiting offshore of the Philippines in case he needed a hot extraction.

Paul Makin: Huh?

Robert Hick: It could never happen, it would be an act of war against the Philippines if he brought commandos onshore.

Paul Makin: After a string of other glitches, the tribes have woken up to this preposterous proposition and the war drums are beating.

Vic Vidal: Because of his broken promises all of us are alarmed. We are mad with Mr. Brett Goldsworthy, to be honest.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy continues to maintain the farce. Even claiming to have a US$500 million advance sitting in a trust fund. To which the tribes mysteriously have turned up their noses.

Robert Hick: He comes across as very convincing. He brags about all his different business interests, all over the world, and his huge organisation and the multitude of people he employs and it’s all a front. He’s a one-man band with no employees.

Paul Makin: Brett Goldsworthy is a one-man band of sorts. He has an office up on the first floor of this shopping centre in the Sydney suburb of Westleigh.

Have you completed a project yet?

Brett Goldsworthy: Only the Philippines.

Vic Vidal: We are really honest on our dealing with Brett Goldsworthy. We are honest, sincere and implementing our agreement, but question is, we are fooled, because no single dollar arrived to us.

Paul Makin: But it’s not only tribes in the Philippines and the government there who are after Goldsworthy’s scalp.

Robert Hick: We’ve got a lot of people coming out of the woodwork.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy’s global empire at first glance appears impressive. A conglomerate of corporate entities: Sakura Oil, BN Global, Smart Ventures. All bragging links to multinational giants like Fujitsu, Coles Myer and MasterCard.

And how about this? His Beach Hut Media company boasts a stellar client list, claiming to have produced scores of slick corporate videos and ads, like this Ford Mustang TV spot. But it’s all a sham. He had nothing to do with it. It was shot by a Sydney TV company called True Post Productions, who have never heard of Brett Goldsworthy. And the fantasy continues. However, few of his victims are prepared to go on camera because they say they fear reprisals.

Now Goldsworthy himself is playing the victim, claiming Robert Hick threatened to extort a fortune from him.

Brett Goldsworthy: And extortion.

Paul Makin: How much are we talking about?

Brett Goldsworthy: Ten million dollars.

Paul Makin: Goldsworthy has taken an AVO [Apprehended Violence Order] against Robert Hick and claims he’s brought in the Feds.

Brett Goldsworthy: There’s an action going on in the Philippines at the moment with the Australian Federal police. Our serious crime division is investigating and working with the Filipino national police.

Robert Hick: I’ve asked for my money, but I can’t see how that could be considered extortion.

Paul Makin: Money that you are entitled to?

Robert Hick: Absolutely. That is one of his intimidating tactics he uses to stop people reporting his frauds.

Paul Makin: Unfortunately Goldsworthy couldn’t supply us with one name of anyone who’d back up his claims. Meanwhile the world is catching up with big-talking Brett. Chris Lang runs REDD-Monitor.org, a forest regeneration watchdog site.

Chris Lang: What I am in favour of is supporting Indigenous peoples’ rights. And there seems to be quite a lot of evidence that what Shift2Neutral is doing is just bulldozing over Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Indigenous Person: He must answer.

Robert Hick: He needs to be exposed so the relevant government agencies need to take notice and investigate him.