Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2026
Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (12:26): I'd like to address my remarks to a number of aspects of the Carbon Credits and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Transparency) Bill 2026. Like everything in this place, my remarks are informed and driven by the conversations that I have in my electorate of Monash and the local communities there that I represent.
This bill is introducing sweeping new powers, and that will bring with it pressure on farmers. It will bring with it pressure on farmers in my electorate, who are doing it really tough right now. It will be my great pleasure next month to speak at the 80th anniversary of Radfords Meats in Warragul, a multigenerational meat-processing business.
They've achieved a great deal in that business and a great deal for our region. But I do worry that we're not going to see new Radfords businesses emerging because of a multitude of red and green tape introduced by this federal Labor government. It's red tape on our farmers, who are responsible for our food security, but food security is national security as well.
I am very proud to represent people who grow, make and manufacture meat, dairy products and horticulture which are known for their clean, green nutritional value the world over. This bill is also going to introduce sweeping new powers and regulation across our forestry and timber industry. I am an unabashed, proud advocate for timber towns and timber communities across Australia, particularly in the great Gippsland region.
I was proudly involved in a timber business prior to my entry into this place, and I will always stand up for local timber jobs and timber communities, who have never had it tougher. Indeed, I was visiting a timber mill the other day. It's a salient warning about some of the new regulation that this bill introduces and, indeed, other efforts from this government—because, on its current scorecard, the consequences for timber businesses and the timber industry have not been good at all.
I will be writing to the Minister for the Environment and Water shortly on behalf of a timber business that has an ongoing referral process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 concerning private forestry operation in Victoria. The business advised me that they have engaged constructively and in good faith with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water throughout the referral process, but they are still waiting for a response.
In fact, so bad is the timeliness of the response from the department that it falls outside its statutory obligations. A formal referral was lodged in October 2025 for subsequent requests for additional information, which have all been met, but they have not had an adequate response from the department on this issue. In drawing back to the bill before us, I really sincerely worry about the additional impost of red and green tape on businesses like this when departments like the one that they're dealing with are not living up to their statutory obligations.
We just need to look at the timber industry in Victoria and the bridge in Kernot, which is in the Bass Coast region. The Liberal candidate for Bass, Rochelle Halstead, and I fought really hard to secure funding for bridge repairs. It is very important to that local community, particularly for emergency vehicle access, as we head into a hot summer.
Instead of getting the available timber resource from Victoria, which you would think would be the obvious thing to do, the thing that is holding this project up is timber stuck at a port in America, because that's the state of Victoria at the moment. Unfortunately it's the state of many other places around Australia, despite the fact that we've got an available resource there, despite the fact, in reference to this bill, that our foresters abide by the strongest environmental and stewardship standards anywhere in the world—indeed, those multigenerational families see that as a great source of pride.
They are very proud to work in those businesses as contractors and harvesters and in our mills. Despite all of that, we're reading articles about blood timber supposedly imported from Russia and from other parts of the world with very lax environmental standards. I worry that, in setting the bar here so, so high, we are going to see an influx of these products from other parts of the world.
If you need other examples, we've got the Australian Trade Remedies Commission, which was supposed to bring down a draft decision in September—it's now been delayed for some weeks—on the importation of aluminium windows from China and Vietnam. I've visited a number of local window and door manufacturing businesses in my electorate of Monash, like Talum Windows in Inverloch.
They make first-class products with world-leading people, yet they're competing right now against a 1,700 per cent increase in some of those products. That's not fair trade and that's not free trade. That, on a prima facie basis, is economic dumping.
You can see why the Australian Trade Remedies Commission are taking an active interest in it. My worry with aspects of legislation like this is that we're going to see more examples of cheap imported products that do not have to abide by the same standards that our manufacturers here in Australia have to. I also want to make reference to aspects of this bill which deal with vehicle emissions standards, which the government says will provide certainty, and the government has made a big point about transparency mattering.
If you take their word, the examples that they've set so far don't instil a great deal of hope. We've seen, just in the last few days, the proposal mooted by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy to have a levy applied to all Australians for roadside EV charging. I have to commend the minister for regional development, who said on breakfast TV this week that that was something she did not agree was fair or reasonable.
I'm really glad to see the regional development minister's comments on that, but I really hope the regional development minister's message persuades the minister for energy and other cabinet colleagues too. We've got issues with electric vehicles at the moment. There's an influx of them from China because the government has put so much pressure on its own climate targets, which it is not meeting, and put a 10 per cent mandate on meeting those climate targets through electric vehicles.
What is happening is we're getting an influx of those vehicles from China, many of which have Huawei communications built into them. In estimates over a year ago, the department said they would begin stakeholder consultations with industry on making sure that we do have appropriate safeguards for the way consumer data and privacy settings are dealt with. Speaking with the industry just this week, they tell me they are still waiting.
So, when the government says these things are important in this legislation, for transparency and accountability, I just don't take them at their word. I really don't. Where the government says these are minor technical amendments, they are not.
They're consequential changes with serious implications for farmers, industry, investors and taxpayers. Traditionally, Australia has had a great sovereign reputation internationally as a safe, secure, stable investment destination, but I really worry that, under this government, our sovereign investment reputation is being jeopardised by some of these decisions.
We've seen that with negative gearing, changes to capital gains tax and the terrible mess this week on the card surcharges. The government keep changing the goalposts on a whole range of issues, and that is the biggest thing to undermine investor confidence and investor certainty. The rhetoric that is contained in this legislation around how importantly the government values those things—I just can't take their word for it.
One of the areas that has caused concern relates to proposed changes to native title arrangements. We have existing arrangements. For example, under the current system, a carbon abatement project can be conditionally registered on native title land before the consent of the eligible interest holders is obtained, and project proponents have up to five years—being the first reporting period—to demonstrate to the Clean Energy Regulator that the necessary consent has been secured.
But sections 27 and 28 of this bill would fundamentally change that process. If the Labor government wants a mere claim to native title to be treated as an eligible interest, I think there would be a number of views on that because that would mean a farmer or a project proponent could be required to negotiate with someone claiming native title, regardless of whether that title has actually been established at law.
This would form part of a more cumbersome two stage consent process. Under section 32, the Clean Energy Regulator could also revoke a project's declaration before the first reporting period if it considered there was no reasonable prospect of obtaining consent. Native title laws have been part of Australia's legal framework for 30 years.
They're complex, often contested and always require lawmakers to recognise the practical limitations of their application. But this bill goes too far. It is mission creep, plain and simple.
As we've seen with red tape and green tape, the regulatory creep in other areas can have profound consequences for regional communities like mine—for farming communities and for forestry communities. And that is where I have a real issue. More and more we are seeing prime agricultural farmland in my electorate of Monash affected.
We've had giant battery energy storage projects imposed upon farming communities. They have no social licence. I've met with some of those proponents and said, 'You need to win the social licence of the communities in which you seek to operate, and you do not have the social licence of those communities in West Gippsland.' Liberal member for Narracan, Wayne Farnham, and I have said very clearly that they are not welcome because that soil there is the best soil anywhere in Australia.
It's prime agricultural farmland. It's for dairy, beef and horticulture, and I do not want to stand in this place and see a continuing encroachment upon that soil, upon those crops, upon that prime agricultural soil. It is something that I will stand up for on behalf of my farmers, my farming communities, every day of the week.
That is where we are seeing a creep of dangerous precedents of increasing red tape and administrative burdens placed upon farming families, on agribusinesses. I want to continue to represent a region with businesses, like Radford's meats, that will be around in another 80 years to celebrate their 80th anniversaries—businesses that are proud to employ local people and produce products that are sought after across the world and, indeed, across Australia.
It's a great point of pride for our region. But right now our farmers and our agribusinesses are really up against it. Every morning they get out of bed and put their house on the line to give others a shot at a job.
What they do is really important for our region. It's important for Australia, and that is why I'm taking a stand on this bill. It's not fair.
It's not just. It's not right. It's not sensible reform in many of its aspects, and I will always stand up on behalf of those farming families who sent me to this place.