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The Sustainable Hour no. 593 | Transcript | Podcast notes
What happens when the legal system rewards rather than prohibits activities that damage the environment, an ecosystem, or the planet’s climatic systems?
This first week of June on The Sustainable Hour, we explore one of the most powerful forces shaping our world – the laws that govern corporations, environmental protection and public accountability.
Our guest is Bruce Lindsay from Environmental Justice Australia, an organisation that has spent decades using the law to defend nature, support communities and hold powerful interests to account.
Bruce leads EJA’s Nature program and specialises in planning law, water, biodiversity law and related fields. As well as a law degree, Bruce holds a PhD in Administrative Law, a BA (Hons) in Political Science & Government, and a Masters of Environmental Science. He has previously worked as a student advocate, a project officer at Trust for Nature and a lecturer in Law at Deakin University.
Bruce explains why environmental laws often look strong on paper but fall short in practice, and why the battle for nature increasingly plays out in courtrooms as well as in politics. We discuss the recent reforms to Australia’s national environmental laws, the challenges of enforcing environmental protections, and whether the law itself needs a fundamental rethink if we are serious about protecting life on Earth.
Along the way, Bruce reflects on some of Environmental Justice Australia’s major legal victories, including court cases that helped bring an end to large-scale native forest logging in Victoria.
Our conversation also raises a deeper question: should company directors have a legal duty to avoid causing environmental harm? If doctors are expected to “first do no harm,” why should corporations not be expected to do the same?
This is AJA’s most recent court case on artificial engineering ‘water offset’ projects on the Murray River: Fight for free-flowing Murray continues, despite court loss.
→ Environmental Justice Australia:
www.envirojustice.org.au
. . .
Also in this episode:
Colin Mockett OAM reports on the six women who received this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize – often called the “Green Nobel Prize”.
A new report warns that Indonesia faces some of the most severe climate risks in our region, including deadly combinations of heat and humidity.
Europe experiences record-breaking spring temperatures as climate impacts intensify across the Northern Hemisphere.
New figures suggest electric vehicle adoption continues to accelerate, both globally and in Australia.
. . .
Music in this episode
‘Time to Wake Up’ – a tribute to US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s long campaign to expose climate misinformation and fossil fuel influence
‘This Is Our Day’ – in celebration of the six female “Green Nobel Prize” winners, a song about truth, integrity and leadership
→ More songs from The Sustainable Hour
BE INFORMED. BE ENGAGED. BE THE DIFFERENCE
“If you are serious about protecting nature, you need good laws. But you also need those laws to be respected, enforced and strengthened.”
~ Bruce Lindsay, Environmental Justice Australia
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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TRANSCRIPT
of The Sustainable Hour no. 593
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General: (00:00)
The sun is rising on a clean energy age.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson: (00:23)
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to their elders – past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re on stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. At a time in the year when we have National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week, it’s really important that we continue to emphasise the incredible wealth of ancient wisdom that they accumulated from nurturing both their land and their communities for millennia before their land was stolen. In that ancient wisdom lies many of the answers that we’re going to need as we navigate the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt: (01:24)
Fuels – petrol – becomes more profitable when there’s more conflict in the world. Where’s the logic in that? Well, what’s the most powerful law probably in the world? It’s not a law against theft or against violence. Some lawyers say that the most powerful law on Earth is the one that requires company directors to act in the best interest of their company. In other words, the law that helps them drive the pursuit of profit.
Sure, that’s helped build businesses and industries, prosperity, wealth, but it’s also a law which basically says that if a company can profit, even though it’s causing harm to people, even though it’s about a war, or ecosystems that are being destroyed, well, then that’s okay. We have a legal system that actually rewards companies doing the wrong things. It’s okay, according to the law, that they are wrecking the climate.
And now we’re seeing oil and gas companies once again making enormous windfall profits. Profits that arrive not through some innovation or some hard work that they’re doing, but because there’s a war, there’s instability, and that pushes up energy prices. And meanwhile, the climate keeps changing. We’re seeing now in Europe, extreme heat and so on.
But before I get too deep into that, that’s why we have Colin Mockett OAM, ready with what’s happening around the world. We’ll be talking more about the law today. We have a lawyer who knows about climate, legislation and corporate responsibility and so on. And it’ll be interesting to have a chat about how we could protect life on this planet in a better way than we are at the moment with the laws that we have. But over to you, Colin Mockett, what do you have for us today?
COLIN MOCKETT”S GLOBAL OUTLOOK
Colin Mockett: (03:18)
Yes, thank you, Mik. Our roundup this week begins with the six winners of the Green Nobel Prizes [which the Goldman Environmental Prize is often called]. They were announced a week ago, and for the first time in the award’s history, they were all awarded to women.
They were in… well, no particular order really:
The North American went to an Alaskan lady by the name of Alana Hurley who helped block a massive mining project to protect Bristol Bay, that’s the home of 50 million wild salmon, and one of the last intact ecosystems of its kind in the world. So that was the Americas.
Then in Africa, Nigerian Iroro Tanshi protected an endangered bat species by building a community wildfire prevention network. That now keeps more than one thousand hectares of forest safe from fires.
In Asia, South Korean Borim Kim led Asia’s first successful youth-driven climate lawsuit, coming up with a ruling that would prevent up to two billion tons of CO2, roughly three years of our country’s entire emissions, from entering our atmosphere.
In our region of Asia, Papua New Guinean Theonila Roka Matbob held mining giant Rio Tinto accountable for dumping one hundred and fifty thousand tons of toxic waste a day from the abandoned Panguna mine.
The European prize went to the UK where Sarah Finch took two oil companies to the Supreme Court and won. Her ruling meant that Shell and Equinor now have to disclose the carbon emissions that will be produced by their Jackdaw gas field. And this essentially forces UK to account for all the damage a fossil fuel project causes, and it’s already blocking the dirtiest projects from getting off the ground.
And finally, the South American prize went to Colombian Juvelis Morales Blanco, who helped stop commercial fracking after an oil spill devastated her community. Her youth movement drove the court rulings that blocked the projects for good.
So congratulations to all of those significant women. Each of them received two hundred thousand US dollars prized from the Goldman Foundation to continue their work.
Now to Indonesia where a new report named that nation as the most at risk from climate change in our region. And it’s already begun, according to the report’s author, that’s Dr. Robert Glasser of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. His report that’s titled Lethal Humidity and the Systemic Risks of Climate Change said that lethal warnings had begun in the region.
And it could rapidly escalate to cause massive population displacements in Indonesia. It warned the Indonesian government to plan for cascading disasters around the region. The report said that the biggest threat was from lethal humidity caused by the twin rise of heat and humidity, which robs people’s bodies of their main cooling mechanisms. That’s perspiration, evaporative heat loss. Heat stress is already a major cause of death in Indonesia. There the government warns that heat waves lead to more deaths than any other natural hazard. It’s routinely killing hundreds of people during each event. Children and people over sixty five are particularly at risk. And the report held a warning for Australians too.
I wonder how many Australians realise that each year heat kills more people than all Australians who were killed in the Vietnam War, Glaser said. In fact, it’s something like five times more than all the Australians killed in the Vietnam War, annually dying from heat stress in Australia. And he named the Northern Territory, Northern South Australia and Queensland as the hot spots. No pun intended.
But without doubt, the country most at risk in our region is Indonesia, the report said, where humidity is already high in both the wet and dry seasons. It’s really remarkable what an overlapping centre of climate hazard Indonesia is, Glaser said. It also has the fastest sea level rises in the world. It has the largest exposure to a range of natural hazards.
Many of which climate is amplifying. Indonesia on Australia’s doorstep is a huge risk from these issues. Dr. Glass have previously served as United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for Disaster Reduction and as Secretary General for Aid Organisation Care International. His report was funded by Andrew Forrest Minderoo Foundation.
It also warned that Southeast Asia and the Indo-Gangetic Basin, which takes in northern India and parts of Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh were at imminent danger from the same heat risks.
Now to Europe where a heat wave has gripped several nations including the UK, providing advanced warning of what is expected to be an extreme northern hemisphere summer.
It’s still only spring over there. A high pressure heat dome which warms air as it compresses it towards the ground is forecast to linger over Britain, France and Spain and push temperatures up to eleven degrees above normal. That’s what their weather models are predicting. The British Met Office said temperatures had already broken spring UK records and
Parts of Greater London and Southeast England recorded up to thirty four degrees in the last couple of weeks, and Tom Morgan, meteorologist with the UK Met Office, told the London Telegraph “We rarely see temperatures above thirty five degrees even in the summer months”. So to see temperatures getting close to 35C degrees in May is pretty historic.
This came at a time when Europe was named as the fastest warming continent, heating at twice the global average rate with two point five degrees of warming since pre industrial times, the European Union’s Copernicus Observation Service reported. Meanwhile, the US National Weather Service this week warned the chances of an El Nino emerging between May and July at eighty two percent.
And the chances of it lingering through to December to February at ninety six percent. And finally, a press release from the Chinese car manufacturer BYD reported that it is currently turning out right wheel drive electric vehicles, one every ninety seconds. That means they’re aimed at the former British colonies, the UK and former British colonies of which Australia is one. And there was a report on Monday of this week which said that the BYD ship was in Melbourne unloading fifty thousand electric vehicles. And the current figure from the Australian motor industry is that Australians are buying electric vehicles at the rate of one every three minutes. Now that’s a fact that needs checking and I will be checking it and I’ll be bringing it up in the future. But it’s a nice note to leave this week’s report.
Jingle: (12:03)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Tony (12:11)
Our guest today is Bruce Lindsay from Environmental Justice Australia. Bruce is a nature lead at that organisation. He specialises in planning law, water, biodiversity law and related fields. As well as a law degree, Bruce holds a PhD in administrative law, a BA honours and masters of environmental science. Oh, there’s a bit of work going into those. He has worked previously as a student advocate, a project officer at Trust for Nature, and a lecturer in law at Deakin University. Bruce, welcome to The Sustainable Hour.
Bruce Lindsay (12:56)
Morning Tony. Thanks very much for the invitation.
Tony:
So tell us your story, what’s up front for you and EJA at the moment.
Bruce (13:05)
Yeah, well given that backstory, that buyer’s probably a little relatively so I’ll proceed from it. So Environmental Justice Australia, or we’ll just refer to it as EJA, is where I’ve worked for most of the last I think nearly fourteen years, thirteen and a half years, so more than a decade. with a little time off in between last year, which may be a side story – but it’s still relatively valid – is essentially a public interest environmental legal practice. It came out of what was once the Environment Defender’s Office in Victoria. Still technically a community legal centre. But I’ve always described it as something between a legal practice and an environmental NGO.
But our real project and our real task is to use the law in as many ways as we can to achieve protection and improvements to nature and to the environment and to the communities that depend and rely on a healthy and resilient environment. That’s the kind of the core really of what EJA is about. There’s different ways in which we, to use an appropriate metaphor, prosecute that task. We do go to court quite a lot, so we litigate on behalf primarily on behalf of community groups, environmental NGOs, First Nations organisations and individuals. They’re our main client base. So we don’t work for corporations, we don’t work for government, it’s an independent institution, EJA.
And when I say public interest, primarily our efforts and our purpose is to work with our partners, community partners, environmental partners, traditional owner partners, to protect the public good. The public good in our exercise is, you know, environmental health, as I said, in environmental resilience.
And that’s kind of always been central to the purpose and the task of EJA and the EDO. Like I said, we used we have different strings to our bow in this respect that the law provides us as an institution and in a vehicle.
Litigation being one of them, but we’re also quite heavily involved in in advocacy, so public advocacy and using the law, changing the law where it’s deficient, and in many respects it is deficient when we’re talking about environmental protection, environmental management. it’s also often deficient. You might have good laws on the books, but it’s often deficient in terms of the administration of the law and how the law is used. And we also see our role as informing the public and educating the public about environmental law and how it can be used and how it needs to be improved and so forth.
So that’s part of the advocacy exercise as well. Just in terms of a bit more of the backstory of the organisation generally it’s worth bearing in mind. So EJA has grown quite significantly in my time here. So when I started at what was then the EDO, there was maybe six or seven staff and there’re now more than 40.
We have three main legal teams as well as an operational or administrative team. So the main areas of legal work are around nature, which is the team I lead, which is biodiversity, and I’ll come back to that some specifics of that in a minute. There’s also a climate team, so they’re the team primarily dealing with issues of climate change, fossil fuel industries and emissions and so forth, and then we have a justice team.
Whose central focus now is really about working with traditional owners and Aboriginal communities to achieve justice on country and for country. yeah, so they’re the main fields of work. And the way we’ve come to those areas of work is a number of years ago we took the step, this is really stepping out of the EDO and becoming EJA.
We couldn’t simply operate in a reactive or responsive way with people coming to us with concerns and issues. That happens a little bit still, but we clearly took the approach, and it’s very well embedded practically in the organisation now, of functioning strategically and saying, Well, we have to take a strategic approach to these issues in order to identify clearly, consciously, and including with our partners and clients, what should be the focus areas of our work because there’s no shortage of the work, right? There’s always going to be more need and more demand for environmental lawyers working in this space than we can reasonably fulfil.
So we took it on ourselves to function in a strategic manner over a three-year strategic planning cycle, and that’s what we routinely do. And we’re in the next financial year we’ll be coming to the end of a strategic planning cycle and then doing a new one. So every three years we go through an approach of identifying, What should we be doing and why should we be doing it and with whom? Because that’s in our view the central part of the exercise is what’s going to give us the biggest bang for our buck. That is to say, what can we achieve in terms of impact? Impact in the world. So that’s the main raison d’etre in some ways in the way that we work now.
Mik: (18:35)
It seems to me, Bruce, it couldn’t be more important. We see so much frustration in society in general, lots of people protesting and so on. But the work you do, that’s really to the core of where change can be created, you know, when we change the law. So how is it going, for instance, with the big discussion that was about that we were getting a new environment revision or update recently? What was the outcome of that?
Bruce: (19:04)
So just a the issue in terms of organisation I think is crucial in terms of making a different. I just want to go to this point because I think both strategy and purpose and organisation are fundamental for to the issues of actually making a change or dealing with very substantial issues in the world. And we’re only dealing with the environmental ones, but obviously there’s a whole lot of others. To go to your question about recent changes to environmental law, and I should say, amongst the areas that I work with in my team, in the nature team, is environmental law reform. So national environmental law reform falls within our team, and just as an aside, because we may come to it, we deal also with the issue of forest protection, water law and the Murray-Darling Basin in particular, and also working around the Northern Territory savannah lands, which are under pretty severe threat from agroindustrialisation, especially from the cotton industries. There’s a lot of land clearing going up in the north and we work a lot there.
Just to go back to your question about environmental law reform. So last year the federal parliament and the federal government passed probably the most substantial changes to federal environmental law since the late 1990s, early 2000s. They reformed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is our main national environmental law. Those changes, I would suggest, it was at the end of a long arc of a process of reform and advocacy and reviews and things like this. I’d suggest the outcome of that process has been at best a very mixed bag. At worst, I think there’s every chance the situation can slide backwards from where we were before and unfortunately where we were before, the EPBC Act, I think on the face of it and on paper, we had some real strengths and some real power, but its implementation administration was always a real serious shortcoming and a real failure. I mean, there were some gaps in the law itself, which really did need to be addressed and were the target of the reform process.
But what’s happened in the reforms that came out late last year is that it created certain potential steps forward. And some real serious potential steps backwards. And when I say potential, what has happened is that partly the way the law has been reformed is to create more of a framework for decision making and by the federal like the key decision maker is the federal minister, environment minister. And a lot of the way in which that framework is to be implemented now is currently being designed and prepared as we speak through the course of this year. So some of the real issues and shortcomings in the past.
With it, you would have relatively strong protections on paper, but there are a lot of workarounds that proponents, especially you know, in corporations and so forth wanting to do environmental damage were able to achieve through the way which decisions were made and the laws were actually administered. So for instance, by embedding things like offsetting into the law, which is the offsetting being kind of a type of compensation for environmental damage, which in my view has very rarely achieved any real compensation or balance to the damage at all. Those mechanisms were widely used in practice under the law, though they didn’t exist under the law before. Now in the framework the frame changes that have occurred now, they’ve actually been embedded in the law itself. So there’s some real problems.
Another example is: There was the real need for some much more prescriptive standards around how decisions were to be made under environmental law. And so out of the reform package last year, we got what have been called national environmental standards, which in principle would be very good if indeed high standards were drafted and there’s a high benchmark to which proponents are to be held. Now, unfortunately what we’re seeing on the table at the moment are not high standards, they’re in fact quite low standards and very probably workarounds that you could drive proverbially drive a truck through. So these kind of things are a bit exemplary of how environmental law hasn’t tended to work. While we have good laws on paper, their administration and implementation has very severe shortcomings.
Mik: (23:42)
So what you’re saying is we’re yet to see actually any impact, any effect in the real world from this?
Bruce (23:49)
Yeah, in terms of the reform has happened, we’re partly yet to see any impacts in the world because the laws are not in effect and they don’t become well, most of them aren’t yet in effect. They will be in effect in the course of the end of this year and through next year. And that’s partly a staged change to the law ’cause they’re quite substantial and that’s fine. Stage change is fine, but you still might see the concern that I’m raising is in substance once the laws these new changes actually come into place, they will have profound weaknesses and shortcomings to them. Which won’t, I should say, the the key concern then they will not enhance environmental performance. They’ll continue a backsliding in environmental performance of this country.
Colin: (24:35)
We’re speaking with Bruce Lindsay from Environmental Justice Australia. Bruce, I think we all know what you’re talking about, that that our politicians water down every single law. The real point is what can we do about it?
Bruce (24:55)
Well, from our point of view, what we endeavour to do in particular as lawyers is use the laws that we have to actually try and because often the issue is not actually using the laws that are on the books or not seeking to push them as far as they can go. So we all do that and we do that that’s kind of our day job. And sometimes those things can have real outcomes in the world, right? The courts are often receptive to interpretational reading of laws that may be quite strong but are simply poorly implemented. So if we are taking on behalf of the community or environmental interests or whatever, seeking to apply those laws in a particular circumstance, the courts may have a far better sense of how they should be implemented than the executive government. Or indeed, part of the issue is often having them implemented at all.
Colin: (25:51)
Is there any way that we can refer to some laws that are offshore for us? Some countries I I’m thinking now of the Scandinavian countries where they have much tougher environmental laws than we do. Can we not point to them and say, Hey, why don’t we do this?
Bruce: (26:12)
Well yes, and we do. You can point to laws all over the world and some are stronger than others. that’s useful in for purposes of advocacy, for example. And you it’s quite a strategy we often will use, for example, this might seem a bit odd in the circumstances, but American environmental laws, US environmental laws have historically been very strong and quite powerful and quite world leading and have informed Australian environmental law over the over the years as well.
So there are examples from other jurisdictions that we use in design of laws in Australia. It’s also worth bearing in mind that Australia the EPBC Act in particular and a lot of our environmental laws are actually founded on treaties. So international law, which is to say law that Australia has signed up to along with you know dozens and dozens of other countries, most of the international community underpin a lot of our laws now. And those international laws are quite good and quite strong and part of the issue goes into how they are incorporated into Australian law and then how they are used.
Like I said, these this is a bit of a cascading issue. Some of the laws are quite good. The the international basis of some of the laws that we use is quite good and we do use the standards and the provisions under international law to hold Australian law to account as well.
So those other areas of law are not irrelevant, they’re quite important and significant. As I said, often the issue is in the implementation and the use of the laws.
Mik: (27:53)
wouldn’t it maybe be more efficient to focus on the business act rather than an environmental act? And I say that because typically the damage done to nature, the damage done to environment is not you and me, it’s not individuals. It’s typically big corporations that come in and do major projects and then, you
As a result of that, they also have a lot of emissions that damage the climate, which comes back in terms of extreme weather events and hits all of us. So isn’t the place to be focused on for you guys, the lawyer team, the Business Act, isn’t that where the change needs to happen?
Bruce (28:33)
Well, I’d suggest the focus of attention of environmental law, public interest environmental law is probably all of those things. So the the general environmental law that I’ve been talking about has certainly got a role to play and that’s obviously been a focus of my worth. But you’re right. There’s other spheres of law that in many ways are probably underdeveloped in respect of environmental obligations and preventing environmental harm and compelling environmental recovery or restoration.
So just to take your example of companies. Yeah, companies are typically proponents, I should say, when we’re dealing with environmental decisions and the application of environmental law. But curiously, the basic underpinning law of companies itself has very little to say about environment, about the environment or environmental protection. As far as corporations law tends to go, it’s not necessarily my area of expertise, but is things like ESG standards and ESG reporting and things like that. which are usually kind of guidance mechanisms and best practice approaches to how corporations are supposed to be governed and supposed to be run. But that’s a bit that’s obviously can be quite fast and loose to say the least and often is just simply a matter of greenwashing. And there has been quite a lot of core cases, both here in Australia and overseas over corporations taking precisely that approach. So there are environmental law firms who are tackling corporations from the angle of corporations law itself, which I think is very important and very novel. I should say when we go to the heart of corporations though, and how corporations are run, such as mat issues like directors’ duties.
So who are fiduciaries for corporations and those who run corporations, there’s very little or nothing within those duties that require them to adhere to environmental standards or environmental protection. Their fundamental obligations or to discharge are around things like the profitability of company actions, and the financial viability of companies and making sure they’re not insolvent and things like that. Clearly all important things if you’re running a company. there has been attempts over the years to try and in bring within the scope of either statute of common law the wider set of obligations that include obligations to protect or not harm the environment.
I entirely agree that it would be a very, very powerful mechanism to bring within the scope of corporations law and everyday business activities the requirement for those running corporations to adhere to environmental protections and not harm the environment. I mean there’s other ways that this occurs, I would imagine, through reporting and so forth, but it’s not at the heart.
Mik: (31:39)
Well, it would seem that sometimes even the way things are now, the directors actually are forced to harm the environment because they have to protect their shareholders.
Bruce: (31:51)
Yes but look that may well very well might be the case in a lot of circumstances, indeed most circumstances. And you know, like I said, I’m it’s not really my area of expertise, but certainly there would be it would be a pretty profound change and would have pretty significant import to bring those kind of duties, environmental duties within the scope of what directors have to discharge as directors.
Colin: (32:18)
Well, if you want to become a doctor, your very first law, or the very first thing you sign up to, is a rule that says first do no harm. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get lawyers and lawmakers to include that at the very beginning of whatever they do, whatever they take up?
Bruce: (32:40.722)
Sure, I entirely agree. I think that’s partly what our environmental laws are intended to achieve. And you know, they they do that through mechanisms that are designed in certain ways and and only account for certain things. So, yeah, I mean I obviously agree in principle with what you’re saying, Colin.
. . .
SONG 1/: (33:04)
‘Time to Wake Up’
[A tribute to the American Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s relentless fight for climate safety, calling on us all to wake up and confront the battle between truth and lies.]
Verse 1:
They sold the truth for a shipload of coal
Turned their lies into a platform for oil
Constructed pipelines where dark money could flow
Pulled all the strings so they could rewrite the rules
They bought the judges, and the media too
So when the rivers rose, and storms grew dangerous
We were asleep, we didn’t know what was going on
But we saw the sky turn red, and suddenly, all the fish were dead!
Chorus:
Time to wake up — let the reckoning begin
Time to wake up — there’s a storm breaking in our skies
Time to wake up — this is a battle we need to win
The battle between truth and science — and power and lies
Verse 2:
They dressed up greed in a righteous disguise
They built their fortunes on a thousand lies
Bought the silence of elected leaders
Wrote the rules that protected their business
But hey! Science speaks, and our children know
We can’t buy back that world we let go
There’s no hiding, no place to run
The ice is melting, the damage is done
Chorus:
Time to wake up — let the reckoning begin
Time to wake up — there’s a storm breaking in our skies
Time to wake up — this is a battle we need to win
The battle between truth and science — and power and lies
Instrumental intersection
Bridge:
Time to wake… time to wake…
Time to rise, we’re under attack
Time to wake… time to wake…
We see the danger, we’re fighting back
Final Chorus:
Time to wake up — let the reckoning begin
Time to wake up — there’s a storm breaking in our skies
Time to wake up — this is a battle we need to win
The battle between truth and science — and power and lies
. . .
Tony: (36:32)
Bruce, taking the very public stance that EJA takes on environmental law and the litigation that they’ve been involved in, has that created any litigation, like has there been any litigation against EJA at all?
Bruce: (36:53)
Well, I mean, there’s probably two ways to respond to that. One is by definition, when you’re dealing with the law and you’re dealing with legal disputes, you’re dealing with opponents. You’re dealing with what we would call in law controversies. So that especially in litigation, by definition, you’re often dealing with very fierce litigants or fierce opponents on the other side. And that’s often because you are tackling relatively wealthy and powerful interests. That’s often the case. So you could consider that they’re your opponents, legal opponents. Do we collect enemies as well, as in which is a bit of a pejorative term, but do we collect enemies in terms of people who would like to shut us down, like to do us harm? Well yes, probably. But I think that’s… you’re going to have opponents who would be fiercely attempting to attack EJA directly and our and we have had colleagues in other organisations or other organisations like ours attack directly to try and shut them down or at least impose substantial burdens or harms to them through litigation processes.
There’s the whole area of what we call S.L.A.P. suits which is strategic litigation against public participation and you know, we have to factor those kind of matters into how we function all the time. But I think that there’s on the other side of the coin, we you will have fierce opponents and people who will fiercely resist what we do. But I think at least for the time being, what gives us considerable encouragement and resolve I would suggest is – in this country, at least – there is still a very strong respect for the rule of law and the rule of law is kind of quite integral to the type of work that we do. It’s obviously about protecting the environment, but it’s also about ensuring that the law is respected. There are good laws for a start and that the law is respected.
The law is the basis of a democratic society and is a properly functioning civil and democratic society. That may be sliding in other countries. Who knows? It may all slide here. But at the same time, I think at the present time, there still maintains, in this country, a very strong respect for the rule of law and we will we will work with that and use that as a basis for our work going forward.
Colin: (39:44)
On this program we have had many organisations, actually. I’m thinking back, we’ve had last week footballers for the environment, we’ve spoken to doctors for the environment, we’ve spoken to teachers for the environment. Would you describe your organisation, EJA, as lawyers for the environment?
Bruce: (40:08)
Possibly. I think we have a bit of a slogan. I can’t quite remember what it is on our website about being the voice for the environment, something like that. Or a voice for the environment. so that description is probably not entirely inappropriate.
Mik: (40:25)
So when you have justice in the name, is that justice for nature, justice for the animals, justice for the plants?
Bruce: (40:33)
Yeah, but it’s also justice for people. So I think it has to be justice for people. And it because at the end of the day, the questions of social and democratic justice are entirely entwined with the question of the environment and of the health and protection of the environment on which people rely. I mean, that can be as simple as having some natural places with a degree of integrity that people can go for their own respite, but it can be far more extreme for that and can be about prosecuting harms about serious, irreversible destruction of the environment on which people rely. I mean, there are extreme examples of this in terms of destruction of what mining company destruction of country in Australia all the way through to what is happening in war zones and the complete obliteration of environment such as what is happening in Gaza and in southern Lebanon and places like that now. So these questions of the social dimension of environments and the environments as nature themselves are entwined questions.
Colin: (41:50)
Can I take you back again to your position as lawyers for the environment? Have you had any notable victories in court that you’re proud of?
Bruce: (42:02)
Yeah, and at different scales. So probably the more famous or notorious or spectacular examples in recent times was a series of very high profile cases in both Victorian and federal courts in opposition to logging in Victorian forests, broad scale logging in Victorian forests, which threw a series of cases which were run by EJA and there were other cases run by other legal firms as well.
Those logging operations conducted by a Victorian government agency in particular, were largely found to be unlawful and halted and over a period of many years, well and there’s been the issue of conflicts over forest and logging have been going for decades, but certainly in the last decade, we ran some high profile cases that have contributed to the fact that the logging of our native forests of high conservation value pristine native forests has largely ended. Well, there’s still work arounds happening, but the official logging of native forests in this state at scale has ended and that was not insubstantial part due to colleagues here at EJA running some very complex, very important cases around that issue.
There’s been my specifically. I’ve kind of run smaller scale cases around things like native vegetation clearing to protect, you know, remnant important areas of biodiversity in the state, which have been successful. So some cases we win. There have been cases that we’ve lost as well. because you can’t win them all. We do try to balance out cases that we think have got prospects of success combined with cases that and issues that we think are just important and need to be run. so yeah, that’s the bit of the calculations that go into how we function.
Colin: (44:08)
I first came to Geelong in the early nineteen eighties and then there was a huge environmental campaign under the title of Don’t Chip the Otways and it was chipping. It was culling old growth forest. Yeah, logging in the Otway Ranges in order to provide Japan with wood chips.
Bruce: (44:22)
Logging.
Colin: (44:33)
And it it pains me every time I go to North Geelong to see the pile of wood chips that are there at Midway which are all gonna be loaded onto water, essentially tankers ships, huge ships taking it off to Japan. And this is what, 50 years later. I sometimes absolutely despair when I think of the inability of our lawyers to actually take on the money because that’s what it is. It’s the huge money involved that you’re up against. This is in no way in order to sort of disparage your efforts, but by golly, they usually tend to get away with whatever they want to do.
Whether it be drilling for oil, because I mean only two weeks ago they said they’ve opened up a new drilling for oil off of the Otways again, which is still being chipped. Whatever they seem to want to do, they seem to be able to do it by out-skirting the laws that are put in place. That’s just a comment, I’m aware, but I wouldn’t mind hearing your comments on that.
Bruce: (45:50)
I think that comment goes to both the design and the response to the law. So laws that are designed environmental laws are typically designed in quite complex and convoluted ways to balance conflicting forces. Environmental protection on the other hand and development and resource extraction on the other hand. That’s more a statement of how they’re actually designed rather than how I think they should be designed.
Both those issues that you mentioned, offshore gas extraction or oil extraction and logging or timber extraction fall within that kind of category. They’re resource extraction activities to which the law has been designed to enable those activities to occur, but to occur under certain limits and constraints.
Now the issue with logging that I just mentioned before, in part it’s not really a feasible or economic industry anymore. But it is continuing anyway, even beyond certain ecological limits, but even beyond economic ones. That’s partly why the the logging in the Otways ended as well, simply it was no longer economic, as well as being ecologically destructive. So the law has a role or had a role in those circumstances of managing and controlling those activities. It’s not necessarily a panacea for peace, I should say. Like we, I would certainly advocate for many environmental laws to be a lot stronger than they are. But as lawyers, of course, we can use the law, we can advocate for changes to the law, but it’s the parliament and executive government that largely design the laws and implement them. So we would continue to be critics of where those laws are deficient.
And in the examples that you cite, the law has often turned out to be deficient. But in certain circumstances, I think lawyers have had a role. I think there’s been many other factors at play here. Lawyers have had a role in ensuring that the environmental content of those laws at least gets the best airing that it can.
But as lawyers we, of course, have to work with the laws that are there. And the laws that are there are very frequently either deficient in design or deficient in their application.
Mik: (48:28)
Bruce Lindsay from Environmental Justice Australia has been our guest today in The Sustainable Hour – and thank you very much, Bruce, for enlightening us on what’s happening in the space of law. Now, if listeners would like to contribute or do something, be more active in this field where you’re in, how can they engage with EJA?
Bruce: (48:52)
Well, obviously EJA is putting a lot of material out in the world on social media and things like that. I would point out EJA is overwhelmingly a donor-driven organisation. So we rely on public funds and donated funds simply to function. And obviously we’ve become a reasonably large organisation for one of our type, so it costs a lot of money to keep everyone in employment and keeping the operation running. So you should do you should certainly consider donating to EJA as well.
But follow our work. You can join our member lists and things like that so you’ll be updated routinely on what is going on. If you are in community groups, environmental NGOs, they’re mostly our clients and partners that we work with. So being active in environmental organisations I think is also an important contributor to the type of work that we do when those organisations need lawyers.
Jingle
Mik: (49:54)
Rounding off, we have come to the very famous Be-section of The Sustainable Hour where we talk about, you know – should we be the change? Should we be the difference? What do you say, Bruce? What should we be from a lawyer’s point of view?
Bruce: (50:13)
I think you should be one of our clients, or a member of a group that is one of our clients.
. . .
SONG 2 (50:21)
This Is Our Day
Verse 1:
I’m done with the whispers, done with biting my tongue
Now I rise like the sun — the election is on
From the streets to the courtrooms, we call out the patriarchs
No wall, no rule, no scaremongering lies can hold who we are
Bridge:
Don’t try to silence me – I’m not afraid of you
I know your system, I can see through your game
We are a movement, and we are strong
We’re firm on truth – and integrity
Chorus:
Women and girls, this is our day
Trusting science, leading the way
No more corruption, no more lies
We carve the path for a clear blue sky
Verse 2:
One wave crashes, then millions roar
No ‘back in line’ — no locking the doors
For ALL women and girls, you will hear us say
We’re breaking the ceiling, we’re clearing the way
Bridge:
Don’t try to silence me – I’m not afraid of you
I know your system, I can see through your game
We are a movement, and we are strong
We’re firm on truth – and integrity
Chorus:
Women and girls, this is our day
Trusting science, leading the way
No more corruption, no more lies
We carve the path for a clear blue sky
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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