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

Mr MATT SMITH (Leichhardt) (12:14): I rise to speak on the Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2026. Our carbon market is truly a great success story. It's one of the most effective and highest integrity schemes of its kind in the world.

Now there's a whole new part of this about energy efficiency standards and what they are going to look like for electric cars. I'm not going to comment too much on that. I drive a diesel.

I love my diesel. But what I am interested in is the carbon credits, the abatement. Assuming that I'm going to keep driving a diesel, I need to have a way to reduce my carbon footprint on the world, and carbon credits play a massive part in that.

But the other part of it, which is somewhat overlooked but very important, is there's not a lot of economic activity in parts of my electorate. There are vast amounts of really not much. In a lot of communities, finding a job, finding out who am I going to be, can be a bit difficult.

There's not a lot of shops. There's not a lot of industry, and that's just the nature of the distances. When I started travelling the Cape consistently, probably in the last decade or so, when I would meet kids in community, mostly they wanted to talk to me about how they were going to be the next Johnathan Thurston.

But over the last few years, there's been a dramatic shift in the attitude of these young kids and what they think they're going to be when they grow up. They say to me, 'I'm going to be a ranger. I'm going to look after country.' The way that they can do that and the way that they can fund that is through carbon credits.

Now, savanna burning is worth around $7.7 billion across the northern part of this country. The way that it works is pretty simple. If you're burning at a lower temperature, not as much carbon is released into the atmosphere, and the regrowth sucks more carbon back in.

So it is not only creating a net negative of carbon going into the world but it is also providing jobs, economic opportunity, hope, role models and all of these great things. It provides an opportunity on country, and that's really, really important. They say: if you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.

I believe that's true for a lot of people. Doctors who grow up wanting to be doctors and who become doctors find passion in that. It is the same with carpenters, builders, nurses.

These kids are growing up wanting to look after country; wanting to be rangers; wanting to stay close to home, to the songlines, to family; and wanting the opportunity to benefit their local economy and their local towns by having jobs that are worthwhile and are providing not just locally but globally. Every bit of carbon that they're able to capture, every credit that they're able to on sell, matters.

The purpose of having a job, of getting up in the morning and being a part of the economic story that is Australia matters. It's also really good for some of our farmers. Fluctuations in prices can cause issues—drought, flood, all of these sorts of things.

The ability to use carbon capture to accentuate revenue flows is really important in allowing for that diversification and to give people choice. Choice is a fundamental part of everything that we do in this country. A really important part of this bill is that it gives farmers, primary producers, native title holders and businesses the opportunity to participate in a low-carbon economy not only to make a difference to the planet but also to make money, to provide that economic surety and to get us towards net zero.

Now, net zero doesn't mean that there are no emissions. We have to accept that there will be diesel trucks, diesel cars. Most of the Cape is currently running on diesel generators.

These things are going to be there for a while. The idea is to take away from the carbon that goes out by using these credits and abatements. It's an elegant system.

It's a way to say: 'Yes, we understand that this piece of industry needs to continue,' but it gives us an opportunity to offset that carbon and that's what makes it so perfect. The fact that those jobs go overwhelmingly to the regions, to areas that don't necessarily have the same economic opportunities as, say, a Brisbane or a Canberra, a Sydney or Melbourne and Adelaide, makes all the difference.

It gives them a chance. Now, I've spoken to PBCs right across the Cape. I spent most of the last three weeks drifting across that really beautiful part of the country, from Cooktown to Wujal Wujal, Hope Vale, Lockhart River across to Pormpuraaw.

The savanna burning is now forming an integral part of the way that those communities are looking at income coming into their town, which is paying for infrastructure. It's trying to improve the rates of homeownership to get the rates base up. In Lockhart River, small businesses are springing up all over the place, connected to savanna burning and connected to road building.

It's becoming self-sufficient. It's becoming its own little industry in and of itself, and that's really exciting. For some places that have always struggled to get that economic activity and to find that driver, this can be that driver.

This can be the thing that makes a difference. We talk about closing the gap. We talk about economic opportunity.

And this provides some of it—in something that is so rooted in tradition, spirituality and thousands and thousands and thousands of years of experience that it's just able to happen. It's got almost no overheads. It's so, so important for our region, and I'm excited to be a part of it.

I'm excited to back these communities in, so that, when I am travelling around, I can look the councillors in the face and the elders in the eye and say, 'Yes, we are making a difference here. We are providing something for kids to do. We are providing opportunities for role models to exist.' Having an athlete like Johnathan Thurston as a role model is great.

John's a fantastic guy. But he doesn't beat somebody that you see at home. He doesn't beat Uncle Robert, who you see every day in his uniform talking about how the money's coming in and then going to buy a nice big bit of meat—which can be quite expensive in the Cape in some places.

That's the sort of thing that I want my kids to see in the regions. I want them to see pathways forwards and the opportunities that are presented. We talk about the environment more globally and what that means, and about climate change, and all of these things are really, really important.

I know this first-hand: the Torres Strait is probably one of the most impacted places on the planet in terms of climate change. We've got to put seawalls up. We're doing climate resiliency projects right across the Cape because of how close and how low lying a lot of these communities are.

And that's so important; that global conversation is really important. We have to make sure that we are being a responsible global citizen. People talk about the numbers.

But if eight to 10 people do 1.5 per cent then you're at 15 per cent. Everyone has to get on board; everybody has to participate. As I said, it's hugely important on a global scale.

But, ultimately, we are all here for people, and it's the people that I'm most excited about here—not the climate-change aspect of it, which is incredibly important, but the jobs and the economic opportunity and the role models. I've met people in the Cape who are rangers and are the first person in their family to ever have a job. How tall that makes them feel, and how strong, and how much, I guess, a local identity within their own community—a leader within their family.

That self-respect and that self-determination is an integral part of, I guess, being a person. Being able to participate in the economy because of the work you've done is an incredibly powerful thing if you've never had that before, and it's an incredibly powerful thing if your family has never really experienced that before. When you get up in the morning and you go to work, and your children see you get up in the morning and go to work, it creates that pattern and it creates those role models and it creates that system—and to do it in a place that you love, in a place that you belong to.

Let's not get this twisted: when you're talking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, they belong to the place that they were born. To work on that place and to take care of that place in a traditional manner that has always been done that way, but then to also be a part of a broader global impact, part of the economic story of Australia, part of the global energy transition and part of the capturing of carbon that allows other industries to exist, is truly important.

You always hear about the story of JFK going through NASA, and he speaks to a cleaner and asks, 'So, what do you do here?' and the cleaner says, 'Well, I'm helping put a man on the moon.' The same principle applies: for every bit of savanna burning that creates carbon capture, we can keep our diesels running and we can keep our manufacturing and our industries going.

That's what the important part is. And that is bringing some of our remote and regional communities into the broader conversation, where sometimes they have felt isolated and left out. Things happen to them.

Things get told to them. Things get placed on top of them. This is an active participation in a global movement and an Australian economic movement and a way to empower individuals at a local level.

When kids tell me they want to be rangers or that their uncle or their sister is a ranger, I see them filled with pride. There was a photo exhibition at AFL Cape York House, which is an institution in Cairns where kids come down from the cape. They use AFL football as a bit of a hook, but it's about getting kids into school and things.

They do a photo shoot every year of the kids and their heroes and their role models and what they want to be. Like I said, it used to be football players; now it's rangers. They want to be on country, they want to do the work, they want to get remunerated and they want to make a difference.

So, while there'll be a lot of really nice speeches about what this means globally and for climate change, sometimes it's worth remembering what it means for the eight-year-old running around Aurukun or the 12-year-old in Lockhart River to have role models and what it means for them to have an opportunity to be on country, to love their country, to work on their country and to make a difference to the nation.

I commend the bill to the House.