The St Baker Family

The St Bakers’ wealth comes from the coal industry, Trevor St Baker having been the co-owner of the Vales Point coal-fired power plant on the New South Wales Central Coast. Early in his career, Trevor was a public servant in Queensland’s Energy Resources Division, where he was “responsible for the deregulation” of the energy sector in the 1970s. Then in 2015, the New South Wales government determined that the deteriorating Vales Point had run its course and sold it to St Baker and his business partner Brian Flannery for the bargain price of $1 million. In 2017, however, the plant (operated by Delta Electricity) was revalued at $731 million and had become a “money-printing machine for its owners”.

The Vales Point station has received ongoing “special treatment” from the government, despite toxic air pollution, including unsafe levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) which have contributed to respiratory health issues such as asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis, particularly in children and vulnerable groups. Since 2012, Vales Point has been allowed to emit NOx at nearly double the rate otherwise permitted for a plant of its age, and was recently granted a two-year exemption from legal pollution limits which was valid until October 2024. The plant is also responsible for heavy metal water contamination from coal ash waste dumps and thermal pollution in Lake Macquarie due to excessive temperatures caused by its cooling processes, resulting in the loss of 55 hectares of sea grass in Wyee Bay between 2005-2016. In 2022, the plant (through Delta Electricity) faced legal action after mass fish kills in Lake Macquarie and was prosecuted for its “failure to maintain its chlorine dosing plant in a proper and efficient condition”.

St Baker and Flannery continued to make significant returns through Vales Point until 2022, when they sold the plant to the Czech billionaire, Pavel Tykač, through his company Sev.en Global Investments. A spokesperson for the NSW Greens, Sue Higginson, condemned St Baker’s actions, commenting that “St Baker and Flannery have made this huge profit despite making no contributions to the clean-up operations that will be required when the station closes in 2029 and despite the huge impact that their station has had on local communities, the environment and the climate.”

In recent years, Trevor and Judith St Baker have attempted to reshape their image by showing public support for renewable energy, as evidenced by their $1.5 million donation to the University of Queensland for green energy research. The shift appears to be motivated by profit potential, with renewable energy reportedly “one of Queensland’s fastest-growing industries” in 2020. Trevor currently has a 26% stake in Tritium, a company specialising in fast-charging for electric cars.

Trevor St Baker has had long associations with the Liberal and National Parties. Although he denies lobbying the government, in his words, “for a benefit”, his investment company St Baker Enterprises has made donations to Advance (formerly known as Advance Australia), a conservative lobby group run by high-profile businessmen and former Liberal Party members. In the 1993 Federal Election, he also ran as a National Party candidate for the seat of Dickson but was unsuccessful. St Baker has campaigned for nuclear energy, an issue which has had renewed support from Australian political conservatives in 2024, backed by the lobby group Advance. St Baker is also a board member of the Energy Policy Institute of Australia, a not-for-profit institute which conducts research in the energy sector.

The St Bakers donate large sums to the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Theatre.