Our compliance approach

We administer climate change laws including:

• Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU) Act 2011
• Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011
• Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin) Act 2024
• National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007
• Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000.

These laws give us monitoring and enforcement powers. We have developed an approach to make sure we administer laws in a transparent and ethical way.

Our approach

We have based our approach on:

• helping participants understand their rights and obligations
• supporting those who want to do the right thing
• using our powers with integrity and professionalism
• sticking to clear rules when making decisions
• pursuing scheme participants who break the law opportunistically or deliberately
• responding to non-compliance proportionately by considering participant compliance history
• making sure enforcement investigation and resolution is efficient.

We work with other regulatory agencies to support this approach. This includes sharing knowledge, gathering intelligence, or referring matters for law enforcement.

We have different ways of dealing with issues based on the nature of the risk. Our compliance, education and enforcement policy explains this in more detail.

Our priorities

Our approach to compliance is that the obligation to comply with legislative requirements rests with participants. We take a risk-based approach to managing compliance in each scheme and take compliance and enforcement action to ensure the integrity and success of the schemes.

We expect all scheme participants to:

• provide complete and accurate documentation in support of applications – if they do not, we will issue a request for information and we expect a timely response
• notify us of any events relevant to their ongoing fit and proper person status.

Read about our current compliance and enforcement priorities.

Publication of contraventions

In some cases, we are legally obliged to publish information. We also publish:

• commencement and outcomes of any court action
• issuance of infringement notices
• other types of enforcement action.

Our publication of enforcement activities include:

• enforceable undertakings
• SRES compliance activities
• NGER late reporters.