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MEDIA ALERT: Prominent Australians join millions calling for an end to Queensland Museum's fossil fuel deal with Shell.

End Fossil Fuel Sponsorships Group

Wednesday July 1, 2026

Brisbane: More than 50 organisations with millions of members, and prominent Australians, including Tim Winton and Natalie Kyriacou, have demanded the Queensland Museum end a controversial sponsorship deal with fossil fuel giant, Shell.

In an Open Letter delivered today to the Queensland Museum, they say the multi-million dollar deal with Shell, worth over $10 million since 2015, has led to Queensland schoolchildren being given misleading Shell-branded climate change materials.

The action follows an investigation by the climate communications charity, Comms Declare, which has also just released a new report identifying more than 260 programs and sponsorships through which fossil fuel companies, like Shell, are marketing to millions of Australian children through trusted institutions.

Parent, teacher, medical, environmental, youth, Indigenous, religious and bushfire survivor organisations are among those who’ve signed the Open Letter calling on the Queensland Museum to dump Shell as a sponsor to protect the integrity of kids’ education.

“People are stunned that school children have become the innocent victims of the Queensland Museum’s quest for millions of dollars from one of Australia’s largest polluters, Shell,” said Simon English, one of the founders of the End Fossil Fuel Sponsorships Group, which organised the Open Letter.

Author Tim Winton AO said: “Our children deserve clean air, clean soil, and clean water. But they also deserve clean information about the world they live in and the challenges we all face. Our educational institutions should never allow themselves to be used to launder the reputations of big polluters. Educators should be shielding kids from purveyors of deceit and misinformation, not abetting them in this way.”

Author and environmentalist Natalie Kyriacou OAM said: “There is a reason tobacco companies do not develop curricula on respiratory health for children: it is a conflict of interest. The same conflict of interest should prevent fossil fuel companies from developing (misleading) content on climate change for children.”

Comms Declare Founder, Belinda Noble said: “We call on Queensland Museum to stop promoting climate-wrecking gas, to drop Shell as a sponsor, and to put in a partnership policy that ensures children receive accurate information, untainted by corporate influence.”

Hayley Troupe of the Queensland Conservation Council said: “We are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, putting ourselves and the special places we love at risk. Meanwhile, the Museum is allowing fossil fuel companies to mislead students, the same students who will inherit the dangerous and uncertain future these fossil fuel companies are creating. The Queensland Museum must end fossil fuel sponsorships and ensure their educational materials are grounded in science.”

Cultural and scientific institutions should not accept money from a mega corporation whose “core activities contribute to the degradation of the very heritage the public institutions are charged to preserve,” signatories to the Open Letter declared.

“The museum is risking not only its integrity, and its perceived independence, but also risks breaching its own charter. The Queensland Museum should end its deal with Shell and follow the lead of other public institutions around the globe which are turning away from partnerships with fossil fuel companies.

“Shell should not be allowed to pollute our children’s minds as well as the planet.”

In an event outside the museum today (Wednesday) the End Fossil Fuel Sponsorships Group was joined by representatives from the Queensland Conservation Council, who have organised their own matching petition to present to the Queensland Museum.

To see the full list of organisations and people signing the Open Letter, click here.

Note to media:

•  A copy of the Open Letter to the Queensland Museum will be handed over on Wednesday, July 1st at 11.30am at the Queensland Museum.

•  This will be an “event” with people, signs, movement and singing from members of the End Fossil Fuels Sponsorship Choir on-site.

•  A representative of the Queensland Conservation Council will also be there to hand over a petition on the same issue and be available to the media

•  Photos and video of the event will be uploaded to this site.

•  For media inquiries, contact Maggie McKeown on 0434837774 or via email [email protected] or Lee Coaldrake on 0438195322 or via email: [email protected]

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Additional Quotes:

Nic Seton CEO Parents for Climate: “Queensland’s cultural and science institutions play a vital role in shaping children’s understanding of climate change. When educational resources, funded by a major fossil fuel company, leave out the causes of global warming or promote industry talking points, it does a disservice to students and the community. Our children deserve climate education that is independent, evidence-based, and free from the influence of companies whose activities are driving the crisis.”

Prof. Ian Lowe AO FTSE: “Given that we now face a climate emergency, as many local authorities have accepted, it is scandalous for fossil fuel companies to distribute misinformation to school students.”

Amy Blain, Chair Peoples Climate Assembly: “We hold up institutions like the Queensland Museum as trusted sources and holders of knowledge. It is a betrayal to know that they are complicit in distributing teaching materials to schools that spread misinformation and disinformation. We have to stop coal, oil and gas companies buying social licence and protect our school children from their lies. We call on the Queensland Museum to restore public faith in their integrity by ending their relationship with Shell.”


Contact details:

Maggie McKeown: 0434837774 — [email protected]

Lee Coaldrake: 0438195322 — [email protected]