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

Mr SMALL (Forrest—Opposition Whip) (11:34): I reflect on the member for Moreton's contribution there, mentioning dark days. There are indeed dark days in Australia, not from the period 2013 to 2022, when the coalition were last in government, but for the employees of the Kemerton Lithium Plant in my own electorate. Hundreds were laid off when that facility closed, citing the unviable cost of energy in Australia today and the unviable cost of business in Australia today.

This bill, the Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency)—so-called—Bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing accordingly. Indeed, the member for Moreton reflected on business uncertainty, and I do wonder whether businesses around Australia today feel any sense of certainty when the taxation regimes that they face, through the extensive use of trusts, legitimately, by small businesses and farmers across Australia, are under attack from the Albanese Labor government.

I wonder whether businesses feel any sense of certainty at all when it comes to their capacity to pay their tax bills with credit cards, which one minute was perfectly fine but the next was sneakily banned some eight hours after the announcement by the ATO that they would no longer accept small businesses paying their taxes by credit card, followed by a couple of texts flying around between journos and the PM and the Treasurer.

And we find that that has suddenly been pushed out to 30 June next year. This bill goes a long way beyond making just a few administrative changes—a little nip and a tuck, as the bill title would imply—and instead greatly expands Australia's native title regime and the reach that it has through doing business in Australia. It removes the least cost financial test and hands the Minister for Climate Change and Energy sweeping new carbon credit powers.

These are deeply consequential amendments that the coalition simply cannot support. Let's step through these in turn. The very significant expansion of native title changes and reach in Australia is effectively the principal concern that the coalition has with the bill.

The reason for that is that, under the current arrangements, the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 provides for the conditional registration of eligible offsets projects on native title land before the consent of eligible interest holders has been obtained. What that has meant in practice in the many years subsequent to the passage of that legislation—through the Gillard government, I might add—is that a project may be established for up to five years, which is the first reporting period, before it is required to provide evidence to the Clean Energy Regulator that the eligible interest holder's consent has been obtained to undertake that project.

That's worked satisfactorily in our country since 2011, but this bill, in clauses 27 and 28, drastically upends that process. What the bill would actually mean going forward is that a mere claim to native title would become an eligible interest in the project. That doesn't mean that the title claim needs to exist at law; it doesn't mean that the title claim needs to exist—but rather that the claim has been made.

And that means that a proponent for one of these projects, of which the government publicly says it is so desperately short, would need to, under the passage of this bill, actually engage in a consent process with anyone who sought to make a claim. Just think about what that means for the business certainty that the member for Moreton seemed so interested in.

It is simply extraordinary to involve people who might not actually have a claim at law in the approvals process for a carbon credits project. Amongst other things, this makes the approvals process so much more cumbersome for setting up a carbon abatement project, and that just flies in the face of the idea that we're desperately short of carbon credit union units in Australia.

At clause 32, the bill goes on, the Clean Energy Regulator would be allowed to unilaterally revoke a proponent's project declaration at any time prior to the first reporting period—five years, as we just said—if there is no reasonable prospect that the consent will be obtained between proponents and eligible interest holders. Just think about what that means for business certainty, where this decision can be unilaterally yanked by the minister at any point in the first five years of the project.

We, of course, acknowledge readily that native title laws have existed in Australia for well over 30 years. Although their composition has always been the subject of complex and significant national debate and, indeed, many protracted legal proceedings in various courts across Australia there has always tended to be a recognition by lawmakers in this place that there are practical limitations to the application of native title laws.

That's why the bill that we have before us goes so much further than is acceptable, because it is the definition of 'mission creep' or 'scope creep' rather than a nip and tuck. Let's turn to the issue at hand in terms of any bill that comes before the parliament. What are you actually trying to fix?

What proposed change does this bill represent as a solution? Under the current carbon credits regime, native title holders enjoy absolutely rock-solid legal protections. We see that because these include provisions that a project proponent must obtain the consent of a native title holder and there is a built-in right to negotiate.

This change not only upends that but also goes way beyond what the government's own report recommended. In introducing this bill, the assistant minister asserted that the changes the bill is trying to make arise from the 2022 Chubb review. But, when you read the Chubb review, that's not the case.

Recommendation 11 of that review was the only recommendation that went to issues around native title. It proposed that project proponents be prevented from conditionally registering projects prior to obtaining the consent of eligible interest holders. The review did not recommend an expansion of eligible interest holders to cover a mere claim of native title, which, as we said, is a claim that may not exist in law and might be vexatious in nature.

Anyhow, the 2022 Chubb review did not recommend the expansion of eligible interests. In fact, the review went only so far as to state: Proponents, in keeping with current industry best practice, should consider the need for, and the benefit of, consent from not only Native Title holders but also Native Title claimants. That's a reasonable proposition.

If this bill only adopted the recommendation of the Chubb review, then we might find ourselves in an entirely different position when it comes to supporting this bill. But the legal realities of expanding the native title regime are unclear at best. This is, as I said, an expansive and well-litigated part of Australian law.

The reality is that by fiddling in an unconsulted way and an ill-considered way—this stuff is headed straight for the courtrooms of Australia. According to the Indigenous Carbon Industry Network, who support the bill—and I believe they have met with the assistant minister—11 per cent of Australia's landmass is currently under native title claim that's awaiting a decision to be made by the Federal Court as to the area's native title status.

That is a huge part; 11 per cent of Australia's landmass is under a claim awaiting determination. That's before you open the door to any sort of vexatious claim that might be made under the expanded provisions should this bill pass the parliament. In their submission to the prior consultation process on this bill, the National Farmers' Federation recommended that the government replace the regime and instead opt for a right to negotiate similar to that which applied under the future acts regime.

The NFF, in making their submission, provided some particularly compelling evidence. They found that negotiations underway with the current regime are already difficult, protracted and not always conducted in good faith by all parties. They provided reports of landholders having to pay money upfront simply for an initial sit-down meeting with an eligible interest holder.

If that's a feature that we want to become part of the Australian economy, I don't want any part of it. Worryingly, the National Farmers' Federation went on to state that such events are not isolated. They reflect a pattern of behaviour experienced by the sector nationwide.

They went on to say that the ACCU Scheme should not convert a prospective claim that has not yet been formally determined into an indefinite consent right. I believe that's a point that is strongly made. They're not alone though in raising concerns about the significant expansion of native title through this bill, which, as I said, is a wolf in sheep's clothing and not merely a nip and tuck.

AgForce Queensland, which represents 6,000 farmers who manage some 55 million hectares of land, argue that the proposed changes represent risks that create substantial uncertainty and significantly increase project establishment costs, transaction complexity and delays for agricultural producers. These are landholders who we want to be where they are ready, willing and able to undertake carbon abatement projects.

These are landholders who otherwise are seeking to do the right thing and to invest capital in the production of carbon credit units—which, if we accept the government members' submissions on this bill, are desperately short and in demand and should be fostered. So this bill represents an own goal, when you consider those who already own the land in Queensland that we're talking about.

They're not alone. Other large consumers or users of carbon credits, including from the oil and gas industry, have raised substantial concerns with this proposal. They see that it creates investment uncertainty, which will reduce and delay ACCU supply.

These are businesses that have nothing directly to do with the production of carbon units but, rather, rely on the ability to have a functioning ACCU market in Australia to meet the current requirements of the government's net zero legislative framework. So we either, as the coalition have suggested, take a knife to the net zero agenda of the government, bin the safeguard mechanism and accept that there is this uncertainty in the supply of ACCUs, or we reject this bill and the uncertainty it creates for the supply of ACCUs that Australian businesses are currently relying on.

It's an own goal, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing and fundamentally it doesn't represent a step forward when it comes to dealing with these issues. So our plan is, as I said, to get rid of the safeguard mechanism, because we've seen, in my own electorate, the impact of the carbon credits market, the net zero legislative agenda—driving up the cost of energy in Australia and driving a loss of jobs.

Hundreds of jobs have been lost at Albemarle's Kemerton lithium refinery, and they cited that it was the cost of power and the cost of doing business in Australia that effectively shut that facility—a facility that represented hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment and never achieved nameplate production capacity. But unfortunately the story from my electorate is far from the only one.

Multiple facilities covered under Labor's carbon tax and the emissions safeguard mechanism have closed or are in the process of being shut down. In some cases there have been billion-dollar bailouts of those facilities to keep them online, as we've seen at Tomago and other places, like Whyalla. But while the energy minister wants to pursue his green dreams rather than supporting cheaper power in our country, the only large industrial facilities that depend on carbon credits under the safeguard mechanism that'll stay online are those bailed out by the poor old taxpayer.

That is not the limit of the economic madness that we see in pursuit of these policy goals, though, because of course the energy minister wants to put offshore wind turbines on Geographe Bay, directly related to carbon credits and this other legislative framework. Yet, on the government's own numbers from the CSIRO's GenCostreport, offshore wind is three times more expensive than onshore wind, and that gap is increasing over time.

So we've got a bill that will jeopardise the investment and will reduce and delay ACCU supply. We've got projects that aren't supported locally; indeed, they are actively rejected by their communities. And we've got legislative proposals before the parliament that say they're one thing—just a nip and a tuck—but represent a substantial step backwards when it comes to the supply of ACCUs.

We've got only one choice, and that's to reject this bill.