The $142 million sale of Rushy Lagoon, one of Tasmania’s largest farms, is now mired in so many unanswered governance questions that only one conclusion is available to the ordinary observer: the financial, funding and approval processes do not add up.
📷Photo: TasFarmers President Nathan Cox says serious questions remain over $76 million in taxpayer-backed support for the Rushy Lagoon buyer before the sale was approved.
It can now be revealed that, months before the Treasurer approved the foreign purchase of Rushy Lagoon, the Commonwealth had already backed the buyer twice over.
More than $8.8 million in grant funding was awarded under the Support Plantation Establishment program (SPEP), a program run by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and announced by the Agriculture Minister, Tasmania’s own Julie Collins, in May 2026.
TasFarmers President Nathan Cox said the growing number of serious financial questions could no longer be ignored.
Mr Cox said, “It’s now obvious the project was inappropriately supported financially and guaranteed before FIRB and the Treasurer approved the sale of Rushy Lagoon.
“TasFarmers first revealed approximately $69 million in taxpayer-backed finance was lined up through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is itself a partner in the buying consortium.
“Now there is more to this deal, and the Federal Agriculture Minister has signed off on another $8.8 million, taking the total taxpayer bill to $77.8 million swiped on the taxpayers’ credit card.
“All of this happened while the Foreign Investment Review Board process was still underway, and while the buyer had no approval to purchase the land, no formalised contract and no settlement. It still has none of those things today.
“There was a smell already surrounding the deal, and it’s now rotting. We know the deal was bad and the process was crooked. Tasmanian farmers’ concerns were right.
“Multiple Commonwealth arms appear to have supported the same transaction before the statutory approval process had run its course.
“It appears that the Government ceased to act solely as an independent regulator and instead became financially invested in the outcome it was later required to judge.
“The Federal Government’s ideology on this is driving the displacement of agriculture with trees.
“Running hand in hand with that is the poor information coming from proponents of these schemes, which politicians and bureaucrats blindly believe against the national interest. The misinformation is not being checked because no consultation is being done,” Mr Cox said.
Mr Cox said the proper checks and balances had failed, the Treasurer was committing to the wrong outcome, and it was all being done in the wrong way for Australia.
"The clock is now ticking for the Treasurer to do the right thing by Australian voters and taxpayers. It’s time to put an immediate stop to the sale before the property settlement date passes,” Mr Cox said,
The governance failures:
Grant money awarded against the program’s own rules.
The SPEP requires applicants to demonstrate long-term access to the land. The recipient did not own Rushy Lagoon, had no approval to buy it and still has not settled. How was that criterion satisfied?
The Government funded the buyer before deciding whether the buyer should be allowed to buy.
Two arms of the Commonwealth financially committed to the sale before the arm responsible for approving it had decided. The approval process was compromised in appearance, if not in fact, before it concluded.
A conflict of interest at the heart of the deal.
The chair of the CEFC, financier and partner of the buyer, also sits on the board of FIRB, which advised the Treasurer to approve the purchase. No public account has been given of how that conflict was managed.
Secrecy until it was too late.
The identities of the parties behind the Tasmanian Natural Asset Trust were hidden until the day of approval, and officials refused to answer basic Senate questions, citing “commercial sensitivity” about a deal soaked in public money.
Nobody in charge.
The Agriculture Minister, a Tasmanian, has confirmed she delegated her review of the project to her department. No elected representative has answered for the whole of this transaction.
$69 million dollars was approved without what we believe to be sufficient oversight.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has confirmed the $69 million investment was approved under delegated authority by its Investment Committee rather than its Board.
Was the Treasurer misled?
The most serious question of all is what the Treasurer was told. Did the FIRB application disclose that the buyer’s side had already applied for, and been awarded, Commonwealth grant money for planting on land it had no approved right to acquire?
Did the grant application claim secure long-term access to land that the FIRB application acknowledged was uncertain?
If those two documents do not match, then a Commonwealth decision-maker was misled. If the Treasurer was misled in a material way, the law gives him express power to revoke this approval.
He should use the next three weeks, before contracts are formalised and settlement occurs, to find out.
TasFarmers calls