The independent senator David Pocock will call for a duty of care in Australian law that would require governments to consider the impact of climate harm on young people in their decision-making.
With July on track to be the world’s hottest month on record, the ACT senator will move his first private members’s bill, which calls for new conditions to be enshrined in Australia’s Climate Change Act.
The proposal would force the federal government to consider the health and wellbeing of young people and future generations when making decisions that facilitate or fund the development of projects that could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.
It would impose a duty on decision-makers not to make decisions that pose a material risk of harm to the health and wellbeing of current and future children in Australia.
“Climate and biodiversity will be the things that we get judged on by young people and future generations,” Pocock said.
“That’s what they’re going to care about. What decisions did we make now to leave them with as good a future as possible?”
Under the proposal, the new conditions would be legislated in the Climate Change Act and apply to decisions made under six other pieces of legislation, including the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Infrastructure Australia Act and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Act.
The push by the senator comes after weeks of wildfires and shattered temperature records in the northern hemisphere.
Governments around the globe, including in Australia, continue to support the expansion of fossil fuel projects which are driving the climate crisis.
In 2021, a high-profile federal court judgment in a case brought by a group of young Australians and an octogenarian nun found the then-environment minister, Sussan Ley, had a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis. That judgment was overturned by the full federal court bench last year after the former government appealed.
Anjali Sharma was a high school student when she led the action against Ley. She said that after the court’s original decision was overturned she began reaching out to lawyers and environmental and other advocacy organisations asking how a duty of care could potentially be enshrined in law. She then approached Pocock’s office.
“This bill is another instance of young people taking back their power in the face of climate change,” she said.
“It’s really important to have this statutory duty of care because it will be a legal mechanism to ensure decision-makers really have to consider the impact of climate harm when making significant decisions that could affect climate systems.”
Pocock said his bill aimed to plug a “gap” in Australia’s legislative framework that the court case had exposed.
He said he was concerned by recent Albanese government decisions to approve new or expanded coalmines as well as its $1.5bn in financial backing for the proposed Middle Arm industrial precinct in Darwin Harbour, which a Guardian Australia investigation revealed was seen as a “key enabler” for the export of gas from the Beetaloo basin despite being branded as “sustainable”.
“For me this is trying to change the way we do make those decisions and actually saying to future Australians and young people: we are going to put you first,” Pocock said.
The introduction of the bill will coincide with the launch of a grassroots “duty of care” campaign supported by environment and community organisations and concerned citizens.
