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NATIONAL

The Australian Bureau of Statistics, CSIRO and DCCEEW have released Australia's second national ecosystem accounts, which shows how our environment is tracking, and how it supports our economy and wellbeing.

The accounts put a dollar value on environmental services including carbon storage, fresh water resources, and seafood. The accounts estimate that in 2021−22, the environment:

• stored $59.5 billion worth of carbon in grasslands, native forests, savannas, and mangroves.
• provided storm and tidal surge protection from a 1-in-100 year coastal inundation event to 104,000 dwellings and 207,000 residents.
• provided 161,721 tonnes of fish from state and Commonwealth managed fisheries.

The latest accounts also estimate that in 2022−23, the environment:

• provided 120.2 million tonnes of natural feed for sheep and cattle.
• contributed 10.8 million megalitres of surface water for household use and use as a material, at a value of $864 million. A further 51.7 million megalitres of surface water was used as an energy source.

Organisations including the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, the Climate Council, Climateworks, and the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association gave evidence last Thursday to the Senate's Select Committee on Productivity.

Transcript is not yet available.

Australian businesses can now access $6.15 billion in concessional finance through three streams under the National Reconstruction Fund, as part of efforts to strengthen critical supply chains.    

The $5 billion Net Zero Fund stream will support manufacturing investment and energy‑efficiency upgrades in hard‑to‑abate sectors, the manufacture of low-emissions technologies, and the production of low carbon liquid fuels.  

The $1 billion Economic Resilience Program stream provides zero‑interest loans to businesses in critical supply chains, including producers and transporters of fuels, plastics, fertilisers and agvet chemicals.   

The $150 million Forestry Growth Fund stream supports timber processing for housing construction.   

ARENA has awarded a $38.1 million grant to lithium company PLS Group Ltd to support a trial of Calix Limited's electric‑kiln technology for the lithium industry.

The technology has the potential to cut emissions from calcination, one of the most energy intensive steps in lithium processing, by more than 80% when powered by renewable energy.

ARENA has also awarded $11 million to two First Nations‑led microgrid projects in the Northern Territory, which will demonstrate how solar and batteries can deliver cleaner, more reliable electricity to remote off-grid communities.

In addition, it has awarded a total of $4.3 million to two projects, under its Battery Breakthrough Initiative.

Victoria's PowerPlus Energy will use its $2.3 million to expand and automate parts of its battery assembly line.

Western Australia's Firebird Metals will receive $2 million to develop an Australian first demonstration-scale facility that can process manganese concentrate into cathode materials for batteries.

Environmental assessment documentation for the Port Hedland Green Steel project is now available.

The $4.3 billion project aims to be first commercial scale, new, low emissions iron producing facility built in Australia. The project is being developed by POSCO in partnership with Marubeni and Taiwan's China Steel Corporation.

Environmental assessment documentation is now available from the EPBC Act portal for INPEX's Bonaparte carbon capture and storage project.

The project could sequester up to eight million tonnes of CO2 annually.

Allegations by Greenpeace that Woodside had misrepresented its emissions reductions and its emissions reduction targets won't go to trial in the Federal Court, following a settlement announced last week.

The Centre of Decommissioning is promoting an emissions forecasting tool for the decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure.

The tool quantifies emissions across all phases of decommissioning, including dismantling, transport, disposal, and site reinstatement.

QUEENSLAND

The Queensland government has gazetted the State Development and Public Works Organisation (Taroom Trough Development Plan Works) Amendment Regulation 2026).

The Regulation empowers the Queensland Coordinator-General to prepare a development plan for oil and gas resources in the Taroom Trough.

According to the state government, the plan will provide "a strategic whole-of-basin framework to enable the orderly, efficient and responsible development of oil and gas resources within the Taroom Trough".

Meanwhile, Treasurer David Janetzki has told Parliament that the proposed Taroom Trough oil project should be fast-tracked.

"It is in the national interest, and we need the federal government to come to the table," the Treasurer said.

The Queensland government has launched a $1.75 million Grain Sediment Reduction Program, offering grain growers in the Central Queensland Highlands and the Isaac and Dawson River valleys grants of up to $100,000.

Eligible growers can access funding to minimise soil loss, increase ground cover and prevent fine sediment from entering local waterways. 

Powerlink Queensland has signed an agreement with Hitachi Energy to supply and install four synchronous condensers to bolster the state's electricity transmission network as its grid evolves. 

CSIRO has released a Southeast Queensland Food System Strategy.

NSW

The NSW EPA has released news waste and recycling data which shows that the state recycled 67% of its waste in 2024–25.

NSW generated 22.4 million tonnes of waste in 2024–25, a 5% increase from 2023–24.The increase was mainly driven by a 7% increase in the generation of construction and demolition waste.

In 2024–25, the overall recycling rate increased to 67%, a 1% increase on the previous year. In the same year, an average of 2.61 tonnes of waste was generated per capita, up from 2.53 tonnes per capita in 2023–24.

Ten council-led projects will share more than $2.3 million in NSW EPA for projects that tackle problematic waste such as batteries, white goods, and mattresses.

The funded projects include a project by Liverpool City Council and UNSW that will pioneer a pyrolytic process that can turn shredded mattresses into carbon for green ceramic pavers. 

Other funded projects include a trial of new technology that will be fitted to waste trucks and will scan bins for the presence of batteries before collection.

The NSW Net Zero Commission has released a Heat Stress Spotlight report.

The report says extreme heat is Australia's deadliest disaster, and is under-recognised in policy and planning.

Between 2000-2018 extreme heat caused more deaths in Australia than all other natural hazards combined, the report says.

The report calls for the introduction of a coordinated, seasonal heat response plan for the summer months, which promotes preventive actions. It also calls for more public awareness and education.

The NSW government has welcomed a Land and Environment Court decision fining two landholders for illegally clearing native vegetation in western NSW.

The court found John and Raelene Vassallo guilty of multiple offences of unlawful clearing under the Local Land Services Act 2013 at a property near Coolabah, around 120km from Cobar.

The Court fined Mr Vassallo $315,000 and Mrs Vassallo $116,250 and ordered the defendants to pay the the government's legal costs.

The offences involved clearing about 2,398 hectares of native vegetation between 2021 and 2024, including large numbers of mature trees and important habitat such as tree hollows.

The NSW government has placed on exhibition the EIS for Acciona's 236MW Wallaby Creek wind farm, to be located near Narromine.

VICTORIA

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has announced new parliamentary secretaries to assist ministers in key portfolios.

Bronwyn Halfpenny will be parliamentary secretary for the State Electricity Commission, and Nathan Lambert will be parliamentary secretary for climate action.

The Victorian government is inviting comments on the Environmental Effects Statement scoping requirements for the 360MW Tall Tree wind farm in the Golden Plains Shire.

The federal and Victorian governments have launched the Victorian Renewable Energy TAFE Centre of Excellence at TAFE's Morwell campus, in the Latrobe Valley.

The Centre will deliver training across Australia’s TAFE network in renewable energy technologies, including smart grids and networks, and home electrification services.

Other similar TAFE centres are in operation or are being established across Australia, including in NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. The Victorian centre will differ slightly in that it will focus more strongly on smart grids, energy networks and home electrification technologies.

TASMANIA

Six conservation projects have received grants totalling more than $600,000 under round 2 of Tasmania's Threatened Species Partnership Grant Program.

The grants include funding to better protect one of Tasmania's rarest plants, the pink-flowering herbaceous shrub known as Shy Susan.

Shy Susan's pink flowers are too small for the introduced honey bee to enter. And only the beating wings of native bees can vibrate the flowers at the right frequency in order to release their pollen.

The plant is so endangered that it was thought to be extinct until 1986, when a small population was rediscovered.

Important conservation work for the plant has been carried out by NRM North, in Tasmania.

The federal government has given environmental approval for the North West Transmission Developments project in Tasmania, which is the initial step in the construction of the Project Marinus interconnector.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

A South Australian researcher is set to investigate the barriers preventing greater participation in revegetation projects across the Mt Lofty Ranges, backed by the prestigious Catherine Helen Spence Scholarship.

Adelaide University PhD student and scholarship recipient, Shannon Evenden will explore why fewer private landholders are engaging in revegetation efforts.

As part of the project, Evenden will also spend time at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, a global leader in the interactions between people and nature.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt, and WA Premier Roger Cook have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to start work early next year on an EPBC Act bilateral approvals agreement.

The MoU says the two governments aim to develop a new bilateral assessment agreement by the end of this year, "with work to commence on an approval bilateral agreement immediately following the successful implementation of the assessment bilateral agreement".

The approvals bilateral would be the first developed under the EPBC Act, although all jurisdictions have assessment bilaterals. 

The MoU says the federal and WA governments will "prioritise the use of bioregional planning and strategic assessments to support better and faster decision-making under the EPBC Act".

Collaboration between the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments on offset requirements will involve alignment with existing state schemes, including the Pilbara Environmental Offsets Fund (PEOF).

An evaluation of the PEOF released in 2024 showed it was performing extremely poorly.

The WA government will next year establish a $52.9 million Regional Water Source Fund, to support water source planning and investment in the state's regions.

The WA and federal governments have jointly awarded an $8 million Recycling Modernisation Fund grant to Re.Cycle Operations Pty Ltd (Re.Group) to upgrade infrastructure at the Canning Vale Materials Recovery Facility.

The new equipment will boost WA's capacity to process waste paper and cardboard to meet national waste export requirements already in place, as well as the 5% total contamination by weight limit that will commence 1 July 2026.

Western Australia's parliamentary committee inquiry into decarbonisation last Thursday heard evidence from POSCO WA and BaoSteel. Transcript is not yet available.

IDEAS, ADVOCACY, GUIDANCE, AND INNOVATION

Think Tank Beyond Zero Emissions has called for two key changes to the Safeguard Mechanism.

"First, it should distinguish between the facilities that have a genuine decarbonisation pathway and give them a policy signal strong enough to justify the capital commitment," BZE says.

"That means stronger on-site abatement requirements for facilities that can act, and a more honest accounting of what offset reliance at what scale actually tells us about a facility's direction of travel," it says.

"Second, it should integrate with the infrastructure sequencing that determines whether clean energy is actually available for industrial facilities to use," it says.

"The review cannot build transmission lines, but it can stop penalising facilities for delays they didn't cause, and explicitly recognise infrastructure readiness as a condition of compliance expectations."

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