The Network is concerned the Queensland government's Bill diminishes the value of agreement-making and engaging early and properly with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities.

The Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (the Bill) enables proponents to meet their social licence / benefit-sharing obligations by negotiating directly with local governments.

By directing proponents to engage with and enter into community benefit agreements with local councils, the scheme established by the Bill has the potential to silence and diminish the priorities, rights and interests of Traditional Owners and First Nations communities impacted by proposed developments.

The Network recommends that the Queensland Government should clarify that proponents should enter into benefit sharing agreements with Traditional Owners, and that agreements with Traditional Owners should not be set-off or diminished in any way by community benefit agreements with local councils.

Policy frameworks like the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy, and schemes like the Future Made in Australia Act 2024 (Cth) and the Capacity Investment Scheme are taking steps towards specifically incorporating First Nations outcomes in their design.

The Bill, as presently framed, fails to appropriately incorporate First Nations rights, interests and perspectives in its processes. This will diminish the planning system as a whole and the potential for it to shape projects that realise the best value for Queensland.

The Network recommends that the Queensland Government:

• establish a First Nations-specific assessment pathway and guidance for proponents engaging with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities
• require that all SIA include a cultural heritage assessment and incorporate First Nations-defined priorities.
• develop templates and resources to support First Nations participation in community benefit agreements, including governance, monitoring and accountability mechanisms.

Furthermore, the Network recommends that the Development Assessment Rules and the SIA Guideline must be updated to:

• require proponents to engage with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities early and continuously in the project lifecycle
• recognise First Nations people and groups as rightsholders with specific rights and interests in land, culture and development, and that Traditional Owners and First Nations communities must be engaged with and heard in the development of a SIA
• ensure principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People) is incorporated as a core principle of engagement
• require that providers undertaking social impact assessments must include First Nations people, or at a minimum, ensure that providers are culturally competent and wherever possible, that priority is given to providers with deep local experience and understanding of First Nation community priorities and aspirations in Queensland.

In relation to New State Code 26: Solar farm development, the Network also raises a number of concerns.

Our full submission to the State Development, Infrastructure and Works Committee Inquiry on this Bill can be accessed here.

Read our submission

Our submission to the Australian Energy Regulator sets out the range of reasons why Ergon Energy’s application for a waiver should not be granted, and certainly not without an expiry date. 

As the Australian Energy Regulator notes: This waiver would allow Ergon Energy to continue providing distribution and generation services in non-NEM connected isolated communities, in remote areas of Queensland. These services are provided by 33 isolated power stations, currently predominantly diesel-fired, which support 39 communities. Ergon Energy also has 35 stand-alone networks that provide distribution services for isolated communities. Ergon Energy has provided a complete list of isolated networks in its application. 

Read the submission

Some 20 First Nations leaders from Queensland attended the third in our series of ‘Powering Up’ workshops held in Rockhampton on 14-15 May 2025.

Join the next ‘Powering Up’ clean energy workshop being held in Rockhampton, Queensland on 14-15 May 2025.

While the Draft Renewables Regulatory Framework represents progress in policy development, there remain significant gaps in community engagement, economic participation, landholder protections, industry accountability, and support to ensure First Nations communities have the capability and capacity to participate in and benefit from Queensland’s renewable energy transition.

The transition to clean energy presents an opportunity to rectify historical injustices related to land use, cultural heritage, and economic exclusion. However, without stronger and appropriate regulatory mechanisms and structured First Nations involvement, these inequities may persist. 

Download the submission here

Governance and decision-making that uphold the rights, interests, knowledges, and values of Indigenous peoples and land-connected communities are increasingly recognised as critical components of a just energy transition. Despite the unprecedented inclusion of Indigenous peoples in resource governance, it is unclear how community consultation and consent can effectively support Indigenous-centred decision-making.

This paper, Enabling Indigenous-centred decision-making for a just energy transition? Lessons from community consultation and consent in the circumpolar Arctic (published in 2025), by Julia Loginova, Mia Landauer, Juha Joona, Ranjan Datta and Tanja Joona, variously from universities in Australia, Sweden, Finland and Canada, provides a review of community experiences with consultation and consent across the Arctic and sub-Arctic region which along with other ‘resource geographies’ are increasingly affected by transition minerals mining and renewable energy infrastructure.

Key themes identified in the review include:

1. limitations of state-and company-led community consultation and consent;
2. practices of Indigenous-centred (Indigenous-led, Indigenous-benefiting and Indigenous-informed) decision-making; and
3. barriers to Indigenous-centred decision-making.

Read the paper

First Nations communities impacted by six potential new hydrogen projects in Australia have the opportunity to participate in a targeted information sharing workshop to find out what’s happening, the likely impacts, and how First Nations rights and interests may be exercised.

Traditional Owners and advocates are calling for clear pathways to include First Nations communities in the clean energy sector.

Two Elders and one CEO from flood ravaged Wujal Wujal arrived in Brisbane today to ask Ministers and energy service providers to remove the barriers to realising a 40-year community-led vision for developing a renewable energy asset to ensure reliable affordable power. 

Over 100 First Nations leaders and industry and government representatives are registered to attend the fourth roundtable in the co-design of the inaugural First Nations Clean Energy Strategy in Cairns, Queensland on 28-29 August 2023.