Did not passEnvironment & Energy Introduced in the House of Representatives, 28 Jul 2025 by JOYCE, Barnaby, MP

Joyce's bill to scrap net zero laws lapsed without a vote

Barnaby Joyce MP's bill would have scrapped the Climate Change Act, the agency helping coal towns change, rules on car pollution and limits on big polluters. It was dropped from the House's to-do list on 30 June 2026.

Official name: Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025

Who it affects

• Big polluting sites like mines and factories: They would no longer have had to keep their pollution under set limits.
• Car makers and importers: The national rules on how much new cars can pollute would have ended.
• Renewable energy and green hydrogen producers, who make hydrogen fuel using clean power: The national scheme that shows where clean energy comes from would have ended.
• Workers and towns moving away from coal and gas: The Net Zero Economy Authority, set up to help them, would have been shut down.

Australia's 2050 net zero target

Net zero means a country takes as much greenhouse gas out of the air as it puts in. Greenhouse gases warm the planet. Australia has a goal in law to reach net zero by 2050.

Barnaby Joyce, a member of the House of Representatives, brought this bill there on 28 July 2025. That is the lower house of Parliament. It was a private bill. That means it did not come from the government.

His notes on the bill say net zero has done "massive damage" to the economy. They say it has raised the cost of living. They say most of the world is not following net zero. So, the notes say, Australia's efforts will not change the climate.

The notes say the policy pushes up power prices and closes factories. They say it uses farmland for solar and wind projects. They also say taxpayers back renewable energy firms through secret deals.

Mr Joyce wrote that the bill was "the start of the process, not the conclusion". He said it would not remove every link to net zero in other laws.

Five laws it would scrap

Part 1 of the bill would have cancelled five whole laws.

The Climate Change Act 2022 puts Australia's goals for cutting pollution into law. That includes net zero by 2050.

The Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin) Act 2024 set up a certificate system. A second law sets the charges for it. The certificates track where things like hydrogen and clean power come from. They also show how much pollution was made to produce them.

The Net Zero Economy Authority Act 2024 set up an agency. It helps workers, towns and industries move to a low-pollution economy.

The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard Act 2024 limits the average pollution of new cars each car maker sells. Say a company sells a lot of big petrol utes. Under that law it must balance them with cleaner cars. The bill would have ended that rule.

Net zero cut elsewhere

Part 2 changed three more laws.

The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation is a government lender. It helps Australian firms that sell overseas. Its law gives it a net zero job. It backs projects that help the move to net zero. The bill would have removed that job. It would also have removed any mention of the Paris Agreement and the pollution goals.

The Paris Agreement is a 2015 world deal. Countries agreed to cut pollution to limit global warming.

The Future Made in Australia Act 2024 guides which industries the government backs. It has two streams. One is for the move to net zero. The other is for a strong and secure economy. The bill would have kept only the second stream.

Ending the Safeguard Mechanism

The Safeguard Mechanism sits in the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007. It sets a pollution limit, called a baseline, for Australia's biggest industrial sites. Sites that go over must make up for it. Sites that stay under can earn credits. A credit is a unit that shows a site cut more than it had to.

Items 27 to 51 of the bill would have removed all of these rules. That includes checks on the sites, the credits, and the fines for going over.

Big sites would still have had to report their pollution under the rest of that law.

Dropped after time ran out

The bill was brought in on 28 July 2025. The debate on its main idea began that day. It was debated in the House on 25 August, 1 September, 27 October, 3 November and 24 November 2025.

It never came to a vote. On 30 June 2026 it was dropped from Parliament's to-do list under the House rules. That happens when a private bill sits for a long time with no action.

If it had passed, it would have started the day after it became law. It will not become law in this form.

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum

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