Iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest is to open a new front in his battle with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, launching a new campaign group and website, ourironore.com.
The website, which has been quietly active for a week but could be officially launched as soon as this afternoon, claims to represent “a group of concerned individuals, businesses and not-for-profit organisations campaigning for a sustainable future for our important mining industry”.
However, no members are listed on the site. The owner has of the site concealed their identity by using a company that provides anonymous registration, Perfect Privacy, based in Jacksonville, Florida.
In addition, photos of people used on the website match stock images sold by picture agency Getty.
The Australian understands that this week other miners have been sounded out to support the campaign, which slams multinational companies for “choosing to oversupply the iron ore market in the medium term through brownfields expansions rather than ensure their investments do not worsen Australia’s terms of trade”.
It is believed global PR firm Burson-Marsteller were also involved in setting up the site.
A Burson-Marsteller employee contacted by The Australian did not deny the company’s involvement and said she would refer inquiries “upstream”.
Burson-Marsteller have been heavily criticised in the past for setting up so-called “astroturf” campaigns that disguise corporate lobbying as grassroots support.
Its most famous campaign was the National Smokers Alliance, set up in the US in the early 1990s on behalf of tobacco companies.
More recently, the firm was last year linked to a website set up to defend US football team, the Washington Redskins, from allegations their nickname is offensive to native Americans.
Source; The Australian
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