Principles ensuring that First Nations participation and benefit is real, measurable and enduring should be embedded directly in the Ministerial rules and reflected in eligibility criteria, Future Made in Australia Plan requirements, monitoring frameworks and enforcement mechanisms, according to a new submission by the First Nations Clean Energy Network.

The Network has responded to an Australian government consultation: Future Made in Australia Community Benefit Principles: draft public guidance. 

We found the legislative intent is very clear.

Support under the Future Made in Australia (FMIA) Act is conditional on delivering Community Benefit Principles (CBPs), and decision-makers must be equipped with clear, enforceable rules to assess whether outcomes for First Nations communities and Traditional Owners are genuinely achieved.

Read our submission

The Network strongly supports the intent of the Community Benefit Principles as a core accountability mechanism to ensure that significant public investment under the Future Made in Australia framework delivers genuine, measurable and durable benefits to communities. 

However, intent alone is insufficient.

For the Community Benefit Principles to give effect to Parliament’s intent, they must be operationalised through clear, enforceable and outcome‑focused rules and requirements that shape project behaviour and capital allocation decisions. 

Framing First Nations participation as an investor and commercial benefit - evidence snapshot

Evidence compiled by EY and the First Nations Clean Energy Network demonstrates that projects with meaningful First Nations equity or revenue participation: 

• experience materially lower social and regulatory risk profiles 
• benefit from faster and more predictable development timelines 
• attract a broader pool of patient and values-aligned capital, and 
• show stronger long-term operational performance. 

From an investor perspective, First Nations participation is best understood as a value creation and risk mitigation mechanism, not a cost. 

The Community Benefit Principles are a critical lever to embed this value proposition into Australia’s industrial and clean energy policy architecture. 

Principles to anchor the rules

The Network strongly recommends that rules made under the FMIA Act be anchored in a clear set of principles that decision-makers must apply when assessing eligibility for, and compliance with Community Benefit Principles.

They include:

• Principle 1: Rights and Free, Prior and Informed Consent 
• Principle 2: First Nations priorities 
• Principle 3: Best-practice participation and benefit-sharing 
• Principle 4: Monitoring, reporting and influence 
• Principle 5: Enduring partnerships
• Principle 6: Cultural competency and organisational capability 

These principles reflect the intent of the FMIA Act, international best practice, and the Network’s prior advice to the Commonwealth on a range of matters.

They are essential to ensuring that First Nations participation and benefit is real, measurable and enduring, rather than procedural or symbolic.

These principles should be embedded directly in the Ministerial rules and reflected in eligibility criteria, FMIA Plan requirements, monitoring frameworks and enforcement mechanisms. 

Making Community Benefit Principles more effective going forward

Community Benefit Principle 4 - First Nations and Traditional Owner participation and benefit

Community Benefit Principle 4 is the primary mechanism through which the FMIA framework must give effect to the statutory requirement to support First Nations communities and Traditional Owners to participate in, and share in the benefits of, the transition to net zero.

The Network is concerned that the minimum requirements proposed for Community Benefit Principle 4 in Appendix A of the draft guidance are framed almost exclusively through a narrow employment lens. In particular, the sole minimum requirement for Community Benefit Principle 4 is a target for First Nations employment.

The Network strongly recommends that the minimum requirements for Community Benefit Principle 4 be expanded beyond employment to reflect its full economic scope.

Community Benefit Principle 4 is distinct from, but complementary to Community Benefit Principle 3

Community Benefit Principle 3 focuses on how proponents engage with communities, including the quality, timing and resourcing of engagement and benefit-sharing processes. Community Benefit Principle 4, by contrast, is concerned with what communities ultimately receive in economic terms.

In practical terms:

• Community Benefit Principle 3 should ensure that engagement is early, continuous, culturally informed and capable of influencing project design and commercial decisions, and
• Community Benefit Principle 4 should ensure that this engagement translates into material economic outcomes for First Nations communities and Traditional Owners.

Conflating Community Benefit Principle 4 with Community Benefit Principle 3 risks reducing First Nations outcomes to process measures rather than economic results. 

Material economic participation 

To give effect to Community Benefit Principle 4, FMIA rules must require proponents to demonstrate pathways for First Nations communities and Traditional Owners to participate economically in FMIA-supported projects, in forms determined by those communities and Traditional Owner groups.

This should include, where sought by communities:

• equity or ownership interests, providing long-term revenue streams, governance influence and intergenerational benefit
• revenue-sharing arrangements, including fixed or variable payments linked to project performance
• hybrid models that combine early revenue with longer-term equity pathways
• governance rights, including decision-making authority over defined aspects of the project, and
• local economic development opportunities, including procurement, business development and investment pathways.

These mechanisms are central to First Nations self-determination, enabling First Nations communities and Traditional Owners to set their own priorities and determine how economic benefits are used over time.

Minimum floors and tiered expectations under Community Benefit Principle 4

The Network emphasises that the proposed minimum and tiered participation levels are deliberately calibrated to be both credible and aspirational.

International experience demonstrates that significantly higher levels of First Nations equity participation — including minimum minority interests of 25% or more — are achievable and financeable when supported by clear policy signals and appropriate financing mechanisms.

The tiered approach proposed here is intended as a foundation that can scale over time, not as a ceiling on ambition.

At a minimum, proponents should be required to demonstrate outcomes for affected First Nations communities and Traditional Owners, including:

• verified and demonstrable processes enabling Free, Prior and Informed Consent and self-determination
• compliance with cultural heritage, land rights and anti-discrimination laws (NB. additionally and as noted above, the Network considers that any evidence of prior non-compliance with cultural heritage, land rights, native title or anti-discrimination laws must render a proponent ineligible for any FMIA support)
• respect for First Nations data sovereignty, and
• a minimum 5% equity or equivalent revenue-sharing interest for Traditional Owners and/or relevant First Nations communities, structured in a way that reflects the preferences of the relevant Traditional Owner groups and communities (including gifted, financed, phased or hybrid models).

Proposals that deliver stronger outcomes should be explicitly recognised and preferred.

This includes:

• 5–10% equity or revenue participation, accompanied by defined governance rights over specified project elements; and
• greater than 10% equity or revenue participation, supported by co-governance arrangements such as board representation or equivalent mechanisms providing meaningful influence over project strategy and operations.

It is critical that the minimum participation requirement is framed as a floor rather than a ceiling.

FMIA rules and guidance should be designed to avoid market clustering at the minimum and to reward proponents that support deeper, community-led economic participation where this is sought by Traditional Owners and First Nations communities.

Where proponents propose alternatives to equity or revenue sharing, they should be required to demonstrate — with evidence — that the proposed arrangements deliver equivalent or superior long-term economic outcomes, consistent with community priorities and aspirations.

Read our submission