A Labor-led Senate committee has rejected a bill that would compel law makers to consider the health and wellbeing of young people when making decisions that could cause climate harm.
The bill has been championed by youth climate activist and former climate litigant Anjali Sharma, who said the committee’s recommendation that the bill not be passed was “yet another blow to a generation quickly losing faith in the political system”.
Speaking to Women’s Agenda on Friday, Sharma said the government’s rejection of the bill is “as predictable as it is disheartening”.
“The report sets out incredibly weak arguments for the rejection of the bill. It points to poorly defined terms and broad aspects as a smokescreen to cover up its true intention – to avoid accountability, to avoid scrutiny, to avoid this duty,” she said.
“If the government were as committed to intergenerational equity as they purport to be, these arguments would be recommendations for amendments to the bill, not reasons to put it in the “too-hard basket’.”
The recommendation from the committee, which was chaired by Labor senator Karen Grogan, to reject the bill also exposes a “grim reality”of Australia’s political system, Sharma says.
“A proposal can be supported by thousands of signatures on a petition, hundreds of submissions, the health sector, academic and legal experts, young people, the crossbench, and some of the government’s own politicians, and the major parties will still drag their feet on enacting meaningful reform,” Sharma said.
The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023 was introduced to parliament last year by Senator David Pocock. It was drafted in partnership with Sharma and builds on the foundation that was laid out in the historic court case, Sharma and others v. Minister for Environment. The legal challenge attempted to stop former Environment Minister Sussan Ley from approving a coal mine, arguing that all young people are owed a duty of care to protect them from climate change harm. The court initally ruled in favour of the young people, but Ley went on to successfully appeal the decision.
The bill seeks to add two conditions to decisions related to fossil fuel projects that could harm the climate. These conditions would require the government to consider the climate impact of decisions on the health and wellbeing of current and future children, and prevent decisions that pose a material risk to their health and wellbeing.
In the final report, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and independent senator David Pocock gave dissenting opinions on the committee’s recommendations.
“By turning their backs to the submissions and public support for a duty of care on climate change, the major parties again show Australians, and particularly young people, how out of touch they are,” Pocock wrote.
“Our children know that they deserve better, and are calling for a future where their health and wellbeing is prioritised, where the impacts of climate change are mitigated, and where their voices are heard and valued.”
Sharma said without the duty of care bill, government decisions will continue to not adequately account for the long term needs and interests of future generations.
“The Albanese Government came to power with a mandate to lead, not to preside over the existing state of affairs,” she said.
“Securing the future that young people deserve will require action and ambition, not the status quo. Endorsing the status quo and rejecting the Duty of Care bill in the process is tantamount to relinquishing responsibility to enact meaningful reform and safeguard the wellbeing of current and future generations.”
Speaking on what comes next, Sharma said the bill will still go to a vote, most likely later in 2024.
“We intend to keep the pressure on the government until that moment, where they will, in front of the whole country, be forced to choose between placing themselves on a unity ticket with the former government, which also vehemently argued against this duty of care, or doing the morally correct thing and enshrining a principle of intergenerational equity in legislation.”
Just this week, the Albanese government approved a proposal from Senex Energy (a company co-owned by Gina Rinehart) to develop more than 120 new coal seam gas wells in Queensland. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of the project is valid until 2080.