David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on behalf of young Australians, Australians who cannot yet vote and future generations of Australians. These are, technically, not the people who sent us here to represent our states and territories, but they will inherit every decision that we make in this chamber and in the other place. The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill was the first private senator's bill I introduced after being elected as a senator for the ACT. It's something I've worked on with young people across the country, but I particularly want to acknowledge Anjali and Hannah, who are in the chamber here today, but also Daisy and Jess, who together make up the duty of care team. Young people understand the huge impact climate change will have on their lives, and they are courageously standing up to fight for a better future.

Every bill comes to this place with a history—a genesis—and I want to give a bit of background. In 2021, Anjali Sharma and seven young Australians applied for a declaration that the minister for the environment owed Australian children a duty of care when using her powers to approve an extension to the Vickery coalmine. They were successful. The court found that, indeed, the minister for the environment did owe young Australians a duty of care. The then environment minister, Sussan Ley, appealed the decision and, on appeal, the court found that a duty is not owed under current laws. In the judgement it was said that a duty of care was not for the judiciary but for the parliament to decide—for the parliament to legislate.

So here we are. This bill seeks to fix that. It does something very simple. It establishes a duty of care to consider the health and wellbeing of children when making decisions to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Since its introduction in 2023, the bill has been met with overwhelming support. Last year the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee held an inquiry to allow members of the public to make their opinions known. There were 403 submissions, and only one outright opposed the bill. The one was from the Institute of Public Affairs, the same IPA that continues to deny the reality of climate change and handed Gina Rinehart an honorary lifetime membership. Meanwhile, more than 26,000 people have signed a petition backing this bill. At the inquiry, doctors, nurses, midwives, scientists, young people, teachers, parents and grandparents provided submissions and gave evidence. They all agreed and all spoke clearly to tell the parliament we do have a duty of care to young people of future generations. That surely is a big part of why we're here—to make decisions that re truly good for our futures, not just good for the next election but good for our young people, who inherit the decisions we make. The most powerful submissions to the inquiry were from young people.

The government gave a two-page response to the report—a two-page dismissal of this effort, this urgency and this hope. Really disappointingly, there was no serious engagement with the evidence, no consideration of the recommendations of the dissenting report and no real engagement with the substance of the bill and suggestions for potential amendments, just a contemptuous brush-off. It was a stark contrast to when Labor in opposition and those young people took the then coalition government to court. I hear from young people that there was overwhelming support from many in the Labor Party when they were in opposition. Now they're in government and they don't seem to want to hear it.

Back in 2005, now prime minister Albanese said:

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing the global community and one of the greatest threats to Australia's way of life.

Fast-forward 20 years, and the need for a duty to protect young Australians from climate harm has never been greater. As Doctors for the Environment told the inquiry, 'Children suffer 90 per cent of the burden of death and disability caused by climate change.' The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners told us that 'the health of a child born today will be defined by climate change'. Doctors are a profession that understands duty of care very well. They understand what it means, and at the inquiry they saw a very clear translation to elected representatives to have a duty of care to the people that they represent, not a duty of care to the fossil fuel industry or a duty of care to donors but a duty of care to Australians—a duty of care to young Australians who cannot yet vote and a duty of care to future generations of Australians who will inherit the world that we shape.

Just six weeks ago, the federal government's national climate risk assessment confirmed what experts have warned us for decades—that we are hurtling towards catastrophe. On our current trajectory, we're likely to see around three degrees of warming by 2050. That will bring cascading, compounding and catastrophic impacts. According to the national climate risk assessment, we'll see four times as many heatwaves, leading to a 440 per cent increase in heat related deaths in parts of the country. We'll face 18 times more coastal flooding, exposing twice as many Australians to hazardous conditions along our coast. We're staring down the barrel of more than $600 billion in property value losses.

This is not just about numbers on a graph or economic figures on a balance sheet, though. This is about losing things that make Australia what it is. This is about the people and places that we love. This is about losing the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. It's about watching the places we love—our bushland, our coastline, our communities—become uninhabitable, unaffordable and unrecognisable. This isn't hyperbole or fearmongering. This is in the government's national climate risk assessment. This is in the ONI's national security climate risk assessment. It's all in there. The government knows this. And yet today decision-makers are under no legal obligation to consider how their choices to approve coal mines or greenlight gas fields will affect the lives of children 10, 20 or 50 years from now. I argue that this isn't just negligent. This is actually immoral. This lacks moral courage to do what is right by young people and do what is right by future generations of Australians and leave a legacy for people to look back on and say, 'That was the parliament that made the hard decisions, the hard long-term decisions, to look after us.' Australia can't solve the climate crisis, but what we can do is think longer term, have emissions reductions targets that are in line with science, have long-term thinking embedded in our law that forces ministers to take into account the impact that projects will have on young people and future generations.

We're obviously having this debate on this bill in the context of environmental law reform. We know that the EPBC Act is broken. Graeme Samuel reviewed it and basically said it should be torn up and thrown in the bin. We've got a government that has said so much on climate and on the environment but has gone on to approve 31 new or expanded coal or gas projects since taking power. We've got a Labor government who very cynically delayed the approval of the North West Shelf until straight after the election. At least the coalition had the decency to tell electors that it would be approved. Labor knew that Australians didn't want that. They knew that the people in the south of Canberra in Bean, a seat Labor held onto by 351 votes, probably would have seen the approval of one of the biggest fossil fuel projects in Australia's history as a bit of a red flag—a government that promised the world on climate and the environment but delivered the North West Shelf approval straight after the election.

This bill seeks to embed long-term thinking in our politics and in our legislation, and I want to say a few things to the young people who spoke to the committee inquiry, who wrote submissions, who sent letters, who made their first visit to parliament. I want you to know that you are being heard. You are right to demand more. You are right to say that this is not good enough. You are right to say: 'We are not the ones who created the mess. Do not leave it to us to clean up.' And while Labor and the coalition may lack the courage to act, the tide is turning. More and more Australians are waking up to the intergenerational injustice. More and more people are demanding change. More and more people want to see longer term thinking and decision-making. While you may not see a duty of care today, there will be one someday soon because, as one student told us, 'Our existence should influence your course of action even before we reach voting age.'

There's a clear choice in this chamber. We can refuse to hear the voices of the young Australians. We can deny the science of climate change. We can continue to have targets that aren't aligned with the science, and we can make up all sorts of excuses as to why it's just too hard to listen and to act. Or we can listen to young Australians, we can listen to climate scientists, and we can make changes to ensure that those who will live with the consequences of decisions made in this place look back on what we have done with pride.

This bill is a simple, powerful step forward when it comes to real climate accountability, to show young people that their voices matter and that their futures matter. I again quote now prime minister Albanese talking in 2005 about introducing a climate change trigger bill that would have amended the EPBC Act:

We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue. We need action and one of the actions that we need, which has been acknowledged by the government for many years, is this amendment to the EPBC Act.

To the government I say this: will you stand with young Australians, or will you stand with the IPA and the fossil fuel industry, who clearly don't want a duty of care to young people and future generations?

Again, I want to thank the young people who've engaged on this bill. I want to thank the many Canberrans who have put a huge amount of time and energy into helping shape it and helping advocate for it. It may not be successful today, but, clearly, the tide is turning. Australians understand what is at stake. They understand that this is about the people and places we love, and they understand that it's political will that can actually change that. It is about the cold, hard numbers in this place, with enough elected representatives who agree and say: 'Of course I've got a duty of care to young people and future generations. Of course I do. I'm an elected representative. That's how I should be making decisions.' Again, I thank young people who've engaged, I thank the Senate committee of the last parliament for engaging on this bill, and I commend it to the Senate.