Green bank could not fund farms bought for carbon
MP Dan Tehan's bill would stop the government's green bank lending money to buy farmland mainly for carbon credits. These come from planting trees or letting bush grow back. It touches farmers, country towns and the investors who buy land for carbon projects.
Official name: Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Protecting Australian Farmland) Bill 2026
- The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a government body that invests public money in clean energy. People call it the green bank.
- This bill would ban it from paying to help buy farmland bought mainly to earn carbon credits from trees or regrowth.
- It comes after the green bank put $69 million toward the $142 million sale of Rushy Lagoon, a farm in Tasmania.
- Dan Tehan brought it as a private bill. It is still at the start of the process in the House of Representatives, the larger house of Parliament.
Who it affects
- Farmers and rural communities: Public clean energy money could no longer help outside buyers turn working farms into carbon credit land.
- Investment firms buying land for carbon projects: They could not get money from the green bank to buy farmland for that purpose.
- The Clean Energy Finance Corporation: It would have a new kind of deal it is banned from, on top of nuclear power and burying carbon underground.
Public money funded carbon farms
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is owned by the government. It puts public money into projects that cut pollution. Examples are clean energy and farming that gives off less carbon. This article calls it the green bank.
Some land can earn carbon credits. A carbon credit is a certificate. It says a set amount of carbon has been kept out of the air.
Planting trees or letting bush grow back on cleared land can earn them. The credits can then be sold.
Dan Tehan is the MP who brought this bill. He says more and more people are worried about public money helping private buyers turn farms into carbon credit land.
His notes on the bill point to one deal. The green bank put $69 million toward the $142 million sale of Rushy Lagoon, a farm in Tasmania.
The buyer was Gresham House, a British investment firm. It plans to plant trees there to earn carbon credits.
The Foreign Investment Review Board checks big sales to overseas buyers. It checked this sale. The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, approved it. He is the minister in charge of the economy.
What the CEFC funds now
The green bank already has some banned deals. It cannot invest in trapping carbon from factories and burying it underground. It also cannot invest in nuclear technology or nuclear power.
No rule now stops it paying to help buy farmland for carbon credit projects. The Rushy Lagoon deal shows it can do so.
Ban on farm investments
The bill adds a new kind of banned deal. It calls this a "prohibited farm investment".
A deal is banned if it helps a person or company buy Australian farmland, and a big reason for buying it is to earn carbon credits.
The credits must come from letting native plants grow back, or from planting and growing trees. The ban applies whether the credits are issued in Australia or overseas.
"Australian farmland" means land in Australia used fully or mostly for a farm business. The bill borrows the meaning of a farm business from a law about help for farm families.
The bill covers several kinds of carbon credit. These include Australian carbon credits and some from overseas.
The government could add more kinds through detailed rules. It can write these without a new vote in Parliament. It could also use such rules to ban other kinds of farmland deals.
Say a fund wants to buy a sheep station, a large sheep farm, so it can plant trees on most of it and sell the credits. Under this bill, the green bank could not lend it money or buy a share to help with that purchase.
Locking in the ban
The ministers in charge of the green bank give it written orders on how to invest. These are called the Investment Mandate.
The bill says these orders always include an order not to make banned farm deals. If any other order clashes with that, the other order does not count.
This applies to orders given before the law starts as well as after. So a minister could not get around the ban with an old or new order.
Start date
If it passes, the law would start the day after the Governor-General signs it. The Governor-General is the King's stand-in in Australia.
It would apply to deals the green bank decides on from that day. It would not undo deals already made, such as Rushy Lagoon.
Dan Tehan put the bill to the House of Representatives on 14 September 2026. A vote on its main idea was proposed that same day.
It is a private bill. That means an MP brought it on their own, not as part of the government's plans.
The House would need to debate it and vote on it. Then the Senate, the second house of Parliament, would need to pass it too.
Cost and human rights
The notes on the bill say it would not cost or save any money. They also say it does not raise any human rights issues.
Its journey through Parliament
| 14 Sep 2026 | House of Representatives: Introduced and read a first time |
| 14 Sep 2026 | House of Representatives: Second reading moved |