Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2026

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (10:49): I rise to speak in support of the Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2026. For a community like Newcastle, climate change is not an abstract debate. It's about the future of our coastline, the health of our environment, the jobs our kids will have, and whether a city that has powered Australia for generations can remain an energy powerhouse in a very different energy economy.

Newcastle knows what transition looks like. We know that change can be difficult, but we also know that change creates opportunities and that standing still is simply not an option. For too long, Australia's climate debate was trapped between denial and division under the former coalition government.

We cannot afford to go back there. We need to reduce emissions, protect our environment and build a clean energy economy that creates good, secure jobs in the Hunter. That's why this bill matters.

If carbon credits are going to be part of Australia's transition to net zero, Australians need to be able to trust them. They need to know that a credit represents real action, that the rules are transparent, that projects have proper oversight and that government can act when a method raises serious integrity concerns. But integrity and certainty can go hand in hand.

Carbon projects can require significant upfront investment and, particularly in the land sector, long-term commitments. Businesses, landholders, project developers, investors and buyers need confidence that a credit represents genuine abatement and that the rules are transparent and predictable. The Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme, ACCU, is an important part of Australia's climate policy framework, but no climate policy should be set and forget.

The scheme has been subject to independent reviews, as it should be, including the Chubb review and reviews by the Climate Change Authority. Importantly, the Chubb review found that the ACCU Scheme was fundamentally sound, while also recommending improvements to strengthen its integrity, transparency and governance. That's how you would expect things to go.

This distinction matters because you can and should be strengthening a scheme—we always want to strive for improvements in every policy framework—but you've got to be able to strengthen that scheme without creating the impression that the existing ACCUs or the framework itself is somehow inherently unreliable, because that is not the case. This bill strengthens the integrity, transparency and administration of the scheme.

It strengthens consent requirements for projects on native title and claimed native title land. It establishes a new Carbon Abatement Integrity Committee with stronger expertise, independence and transparency. It gives government new powers to manage methods where there are serious integrity concerns, and strengthens compliance and relinquishment requirements.

It also makes targeted changes to the new vehicle efficiency standard to ensure the scheme operates as intended. This is all about making sure Australians have confidence in the system. I know some people are sceptical of carbon credits.

We often hear it in this chamber. But an offset should never become an excuse for a major emitter to simply keep polluting. Carbon credits should complement genuine emissions reductions, not replace them.

The government's climate policy must continue to drive down emissions at the source, but there will be emissions that are difficult to eliminate immediately, particularly in sectors where technology is still developing. For those residual emissions, high-integrity carbon credits can have a role. A carbon credit should represent genuine, measurable and lasting abatement.

It should not be a licence to pretend the pollution has disappeared. This bill strengthens the system that makes those judgements and gives government a mechanism to respond when a method no longer meets integrity standards. We should improve the system because we take it seriously.

Getting this framework right matters particularly for industries that are the hardest to decarbonise. We don't have to look very far in Newcastle to understand what that means. Take Orica on Kooragang Island in my electorate.

Orica is one of Newcastle's major industrial employers, and its Kooragang Island facility produces ammonia, an essential input for agriculture, mining and manufacturing. Decarbonising a facility like this is a massive undertaking, but Orica is investing heavily in doing exactly that. Its $37 million emissions-abatement project at Kooragang Island has reduced nitrous oxide emissions from its nitric acid plants by 95 per cent, with the overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the site expected to be close to 50 per cent.

The project has also been approved as eligible to generate Australian carbon credit units, and Orica is taking that next step. Backed by a $432 million investment from the Albanese Labor government, it's progressing a renewable hydrogen project that will install a 50-megawatt electrolyser on Kooragang Island. Once operating, that renewable hydrogen is expected to displace around 7.5 per cent of Orica's natural gas use.

MCi Carbon's plant Myrtle, also backed by this Albanese Labor government, is taking CO2 captured from Orica's ammonia production plant next door and turning it into materials that can be used in concrete, plasterboard and other building products. The plant is expected to capture around 2½ thousand tonnes of CO2 a year and produce around 10,000 tonnes of new materials.

The emissions from one industrial process become the input for another. Waste becomes a resource. This is what industrial decarbonisation looks like in the real world.

It's hard work, and it doesn't happen overnight. These industries are not sitting idle. They are investing, innovating and working to reduce their emissions.

But the scale of the transition is enormous. Think about industries like cement, aviation, shipping and energy-intensive manufacturing. Many were built decades ago around infrastructure and processes that no longer fit for a net zero economy.

That means replacing gas with electricity, transforming production processes, rebuilding infrastructure and developing technologies that simply did not exist when these industries were established. We need to support these industries to reduce emissions as quickly as technology allows while continuing to invest in the technologies that will help them go further.

That's where high-integrity carbon credits can have a role. They can help address genuinely residual emissions while businesses invest in cleaner technologies and processes, but that only works if the credits themselves are credible. A tonne of carbon pollution cannot simply disappear because someone has purchased a certificate.

There must be genuine abatement, transparency and accountability. That's precisely why strengthening Australia's carbon credit framework matters. Importantly, the Chubb review recognised the strength of the ACCU Scheme and identified opportunities to build on that foundation through improvements to integrity, transparency and governance.

That's exactly what good policy should do: build on what works, learn from experience and continuously strengthen our frameworks. We should be focused on building confidence in the scheme, supporting high-integrity carbon abatement and ensuring ACCUs continue to play a vital role in Australia's emissions-reduction efforts. The ACCU Scheme is not simply about helping businesses manage their emissions.

It also creates a commercial incentive for Australian businesses and landholders to undertake projects that avoid emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere. In the land sector, that can mean environmental plantings, revegetation and changes in land management. Those projects require people—project developers, ecologists, foresters, nursery workers, contractors, carbon specialists, monitoring teams and land managers.

The ACCU Scheme and the safeguard mechanism are helping create an Australian carbon industry, directing private capital into regional landscapes and supporting Australian jobs. In Newcastle, this emerging industry is already creating jobs. Businesses such as Carbon Neutral, based within the University of Newcastle's innovation ecosystem, are developing carbon projects right around Australia, bringing together carbon science, land management and private investment.

Newcastle isn't only home to those traditional industries that are having to carbonise; it's also becoming home to businesses supplying the expertise, technology and projects that make transition possible. There is an important connection here with investment certainty. The safeguard mechanism creates a durable domestic source of demand.

For covered facilities, emissions baselines are generally declining by 4.9 per cent each year through to 2030. That provides an incentive for direct industrial abatement and for investment in high-integrity Australian ACCUs, where residual emissions remain. If we get integrity, confidence and investment certainty right, we can mobilise private capital into genuine abatement while supporting new industries and jobs.

That's good for the climate, regional Australia and Australia's industrial competitiveness. We should not be asking hard-to-abate industries to choose between pretending their emissions don't exist and shutting down. We should be driving and giving them a pathway to decarbonise.

Newcastle is already showing what that pathway can look like. We have companies investing in emissions reductions, researchers developing new technologies, workers with skills to build and operate them and a growing ecosystem of businesses that can turn industrial decarbonisation into new jobs and industries. It's not about giving industry a free pass.

This is about giving industry a pathway. If Australian companies want to compete in a world increasingly demanding lower carbon products, we need credible mechanisms that help them reduce emissions, while the next generation of technologies comes online. Australia also has an opportunity to become a significant producer of high-integrity carbon abatement.

That means supporting projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere, avoid emissions, restore landscapes and improve land management while ensuring the carbon abatement itself is properly measured and credited. We have spent generations building Australia's industrial economy. Now we have the opportunity to use that expertise to build its clean industrial future.

We can create skilled jobs, attract investment and develop technologies and expertise that can ultimately be exported around the world. And we can show that a region built on heavy industry can also lead Australia's transition to net zero. We should also be honest about how we get there.

Australia lost years of investment, certainty and the time that we could have been spending building those industries and infrastructure that we now need. For almost a decade, the coalition spent too much time fighting the reality of climate action rather than preparing Australia for the future. Anyway, that's why this government's getting on with the job.

We don't have any time to waste. We've legislated emissions reduction targets. We're investing in renewable energy, supporting new transmission, backing manufacturing, investing in skills, strengthening the systems that underpin Australia's carbon market.

I want to make a particular point to the Greens political party, because Newcastle is a community that cares deeply about climate change and our natural environment. We want stronger action on climate change. We want clean energy.

We want genuine emissions reductions, and the government's getting on with that. So I hope the Greens support this bill. There is a difference between demanding perfection and delivering real, substantive climate action.

Let's not have a repeat of those mistakes of the past. The last time Australia had a major opportunity to take meaningful action on climate change, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme got voted down in the Senate, where the coalition and the Greens joined together. Let's not repeat that.

This bill has important strengths for First Nations communities. We want to see that First Nations knowledge and perspectives are embedded. They have got to be represented in Australia's carbon market.

Ultimately, this bill is about trust—trust that the numbers are real, trust that the rules are clear, trust that projects are properly scrutinised, trust that people with expertise are making the decisions, and trust that First Nations rights are respected. Newcastle has never been afraid of change. We're a city of workers and innovators and have been for generations.

We've powered Australia. We've built things Australia needs, and now we've got the opportunity to help build what Australia needs next: a cleaner, more competitive and more sustainable economy. That's what this bill helps deliver.