Australia's race to net-zero emissions by 2050 means that First Nations groups are becoming key partners in sustainable wealth-creation projects.

The federal government's plan to include First Nations people as co-drivers of new industries to help drive wealth creation has been backed by key First Nations bodies, who agree it must be built on the foundation of free, prior and informed consent.

The First Nations Clean Energy Symposium was definitely a huge success. We covered everything from heartbreaking stories of climate impacts on our most vulnerable communities to groundbreaking community-led energy projects.

As the Australian Government prepares to introduce its Future Made in Australia Act, the First Nations Clean Energy Network is urging Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to ensure the legislation includes and empowers First Nations peoples.

Many of the big wind and solar farms planned to help Australia achieve net zero emissions by 2050 will be built on the lands and waters of First Nations peoples. More than half of the projects that will extract critical minerals overlap with Indigenous-held lands.

First Nations people can and should benefit from the renewable energy revolution, including from small community-based projects to large scale export-focused initiatives, and also through the development of new supply chains and industries.

Enabling and empowering First Nations to play a key and central role in Australia’s renewable energy transition goes beyond just social licence issues.

It is an exciting time in the energy sector with new technologies, ways to decarbonise, and innovations to make the day-to-day lives of many Australians easier – with abundant reliable, clean energy on the horizon. 

Leslie Schultz, a Ngadju elder from Western Australia's Goldfields and a First Nations Clean Energy Network Steering Group member, has just returned from New York. 

Increasing demand, innovations in technology, and extensions to electricity grid infrastructure are likely to lead to a growth in renewable energy development on native title land and water.

The likelihood that native title holders and claimants will benefit from this development will depend in part upon the legal regime that governs native title.

The prevailing legal regime governing renewable energy development on native title land and water involves two principal alternatives to permitting development: voluntary land use agreements and compulsory government acquisition of native title.

While the procedures associated with these alternatives afford native title holders and claimants more procedural protection than some commentators have suggested, they fail to attain the standard of ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ prescribed by international best practice and the philosophical and moral arguments that underpin that standard.

To remedy this failure, the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) should be amended to place less weight on economic and similar considerations when authorising the compulsory acquisition of native title for renewable energy development, or prohibit the compulsory acquisition of native title generally, except for in certain exceptional circumstances.

While this paper focuses on renewable energy in particular, a number of its conclusions could apply to issues that attenuate native title generally.

Author: Maynard, G. (2022), Renewable energy development and the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth): The fairness of validating future acts associated with renewable energy projects (Working Paper No. 143/2022), Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University

Read the paper

Thanks for use of the photo by Angie Warren on Unsplash