ANJALI:

I guess I've always grown up around the effects of climate change. I've just never been able to call it that. I have family that live in India, and India, particularly in recent years, has been really, really drastically hit by climate impacts. We've seen heatwaves that have broken records, asphalt melting, rubbish tips on fire, birds falling out of the sky, really quite horrific things.

And I've seen family go through this. Sometimes people are cut off from cell service, which means you can't get in contact with family, and it's really, really terrifying not being able to contact family. Not knowing whether they're safe, not knowing whether everyone's okay, whether the house has been damaged or whether people have been affected. And for me, it's always been knowing that we don't experience climate impacts to the same extent. And with that comes responsibility to use the voices that we have to speak up for those who, perhaps, can't.

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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

Three years ago, a court ruled that the federal government has a duty of care to young people. To protect them from future harm the climate crisis will inflict during their lifetimes.

That decision was overturned on appeal, but today there’s an inquiry looking into how that same duty of care could be brought into law via the parliament.

Its been a long journey for the young woman who first brought that case against the Federal Environment Minister, something she did while still in high school.

Today, climate activist and contributor to The Saturday Paper, Anjali Sharma, on her campaign to legislate a Duty of Care and fighting for climate action in Parliament house.

It’s Monday, March 25.

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ANGE:

Anjali, you're speaking to us from Canberra and, up the road from you in parliament, there's quite a lot of attention on some climate legislation that you're involved in. I want to know what this campaign has been like for you personally, like, how and where do you run it? How do you fit it around other things going on in your life?

ANJALI:

It's quite a funny campaign. It's very, very grassroots in the most basic sense. It's me and three of my friends who live on campus at uni, so it's kind of just conducted out of one of our college rooms in the kitchen while we're making dinner. That's kind of when the best strategy happens. A lot of our best strategy comes out of a sentence that starts with, OMG, wouldn't it be so cool if we did this? And that's kind of how we get ten hours of work added to our plate that week. And, you know, the next week we're in Parliament trying out this new strategy that was really conceptualised in our kitchen. I also feel like we kind of do shake up the agenda of Parliament sometimes, you walk the corridors and you see all those lobbyists with their orange passes and you know that they're getting paid a lot for this and that they've had all this training and they've been in this for so long. And, you know, you've just come straight from two uni classes this morning and you've got three meetings with politicians before you go home and do your lecture that you missed the other day. But, politics isn't necessarily designed for young people. I think that the fact that so many young people are now inserting themselves into places that haven't been designed for them is quite powerful.

ANGE:

And so you've been campaigning for this bill before the Senate, the Duty of Care Bill, which was introduced by Senator David Pocock. Can you explain what the bill is and what you're calling for?

ANJALI:

Yeah, so the Duty of Care Bill would basically be an amendment to the Climate Change Act. And it relates to six other Acts of Parliament, one of them being the EPBC act, which is the one which, under which, most fossil fuel approvals are made. Basically, if this bill was to pass into law, it would create a new statutory duty for governments to take into account the impacts of making decisions, on the health and wellbeing of young people. So if there was to be a fossil fuel approval that was to come across the government's desk, they would be required to take into account the best available science and all information that they have available to them to determine whether or not the making of that decision will pose a tangible risk to the health and wellbeing of young people.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 1:

“A group of high school students, supported by an 87 year old nun, took Susan Lee to court to block an expansion of Whitehaven’s Vickery coal mine near Boggabri...”

ANJALI:

So the process of getting this bill to where it is now has been a four year long road. It started with the court case of Sharma and Minister for the Environment, which was me and seven other school age students who took the former environment minister, Susan Lee, to court.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“The teenagers had argued it would harm their future. Back then, the court ruled against the expansion part of their case, but it did find the minister owed a duty of care to our young people when assessing such developments.”

ANJALI:

So initially we were successful on that, which was a massive deal. The federal court, one of the country's highest institutions, ruled against the government in our favour and imposed this duty of care on parliament. But the government then appealed that decision, and they took us eight children back to court, arguing that they didn't actually have this duty of care.

Audio Excerpt - Anjali Sharma on day of judgement:

“I'm devastated by today's judgement and so, so angry. But it will not deter us in our fight for a safe future.”

ANJALI:

So we interpreted that as almost a mandate, you know, a reason to take this fight to Parliament and demand that now that the duty of care has been hand-balled over to them by the Federal Court, that they should take on this challenge and that they should legislate it.

ANGE:

So this bill has been before a Senate Committee and you gave evidence, right, and you watched along in those hearings. What was that like? What was memorable about it?

ANJALI:

Yeah, absolutely.

Audio Excerpt - Speaker:

“Good morning. I declare open this hearing of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee and the inquiry into Climate Change amendment duty...”

ANJALI:

The point that I just made about politics not being accessible for young people was very, very demonstrated in the Senate committee. It's a very adversarial process. It's very intimidating.

Audio Excerpt - Anjali Sharma at committee hearing:

“My name is Anjali Sharma. I was the lead litigant of the Sharma and Minister for the Environment class action. I'm here in a private capacity and I can confirm I have received...”

ANJALI:

You sit on a panel in front of a bunch of senators, and they fire off questions at you and you have to, you know, either take them on notice or give your best answer.

Audio Excerpt - Anjali Sharma at committee hearing:

“How can it be that the Federal Court of Australia has said that it is the job of Parliament to impose this duty of care, while the Parliament also continues to watch its hands of its responsibility. It’s a policy gap…”

ANJALI:

Doctor Catherine Pendry was one of the first people to give evidence that day of the Senate hearings. And we sat in this room as we watched her, 38 weeks pregnant, state unequivocally that it is absolutely the case today that the health of a child born today will be defined by climate change.

Audio Excerpt - Doctor Catherine Pendry:

“Of course experiencing a severe extreme weather event, is an experience that can leave anyone traumatised. But if you are a child or young person, and you're more and more at risk, as children are today, of experiencing these events, that can have a long term impact on who you are and the life you lead and the opportunities that you have.”

ANJALI:

To really feel the weight of that, to feel the injustice of that, and to be looking at people who have the power to legislate in a manner that could give that child the opportunity to thrive and prosper as generations before it have, that was a really powerful image, and that was one that really stuck with me, and I hope it stuck with the senators who were on that panel too.

ANGE:

And Anjali, I suppose the government would say, you know, in terms of climate action, they've put an emissions target into law, they've strengthened that safeguard mechanism and those are quite specific and practical laws. Why do you think a duty of care would be an improvement on top of all of that?

ANJALI:

So there's a very stark difference between the measures that the government has put in already and what this bill proposes. Yes, they have an emissions reductions target. Yes, they have the safeguard mechanism, they have the Climate Change Act. They have their renewable energy target and those do speak to the issue of climate change and aim to mitigate it and to target it in a way that makes our world more liveable in the future. But this duty of care bill specifically speaks to the rights, the health and wellbeing of young people. And what we don't see, in the government's already legislative mechanisms, is the acknowledgement that young people will be most affected by climate change because it is us who will live out our lives in a world intrinsically impacted and shaped by the decisions made today.

And I know that 50 years down the line, if we are living in a world that is really terribly struck by climate change, that we won't be able to look back 50 years and point to the one singular project that was the straw that broke the camel's back. And I know that that's a lot to ask of government departments to do. But, I also know that that isn't a reason to put legislation like this that specifically acknowledges the rights of young people, that isn't a reason to put it in the too hard basket. We have to find answers to these hard questions, rather than just posing these hard questions and using that as a reason to throw legislation like this in the bin.

ANGE:

After the break, what hope is there that duty of care will be passed into law?

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ANGE:

Anjali, Labor has been in government for almost two years now and, I suppose, they were partly elected on platform and promised to do more on climate change. Now that we are almost two years into this government, I'm wondering how you would assess Labour's progress on that promise. How do you see it?

ANJALI:

Yeah, absolutely. There have been a suite of measures that have been brought into action in recent years. This government really has demonstrated a commitment to act on climate change in a way that we've been begging for for the last ten years. That doesn't mean that it's enough, especially for young people who have so much of their lives to live, in a world where we are seeing records broken that should never be touched. In a world where headlines about natural disasters dominate our news. We know that it's not enough. We also know that the government isn't necessarily on track to meet all of these targets. And that's why this bill is a good faith proposal to be another tool in the government's belt to, firstly, help them meet these targets, but also to make sure that in the eyes of young people especially, that they are doing enough or that they are increasing their ambition. They are making a significant commitment to ensure that we aren't disproportionately impacted by climate change, that we aren't worse off than generations before us.

ANGE:

Anjali, this Duty of Care Bill is before Parliament. I'm wondering, do you think it will get up? Like, how hopeful are you about its chances?

ANJALI:

The early indications we've had from the government aren't necessarily positive. We know the private member's bills very rarely pass. But we do know that when they pass, they often have quite significant moral ramifications for society. And we know that this is a bill that could do that, that could have a lot of impacts for trust in our national institutions, for the faith that young people have in democracy. Especially from government politicians, we hear a lot of the same lines. We hear, but we're acting on climate change. We hear, we’re parents too, we know what we're doing. Obviously, you know, we're acting in the best interests of current and future generations. But our firm belief is that the personal experiences of politicians, you know, while they’re great, while they really do form context to the legislation that can be passed, nothing compares to a formalised acknowledgement, in legislation, that it is young people who will be affected the most by the impacts of the decisions made today, and that legislation should be updated to reflect our needs and our rights. And while the government has introduced a suite of measures to target climate change, currently there's still nothing that acknowledges that young people do have a disproportionate burden when it comes to climate change, and that our health and wellbeing should be protected. I think that what the government says in relation to this is an attempt to keep a tight grip on their legislative agenda. But, if this is a bill that is supported by so much of society, if the public inquiry into this bill has seen 400 submissions made to Parliament, whereas normally inquiries before this committee get 20 to 30, then I think that the government should relax its grip on let on their legislative agenda and at least come to the table. And perhaps, if this legislation, in their opinion, isn't perfect in its current form, we can work together on negotiations and amendments to get it to a mutually agreeable state in which we can pass it. And there can be an acknowledgement in legislation that young people should be protected in the face of climate change.

ANGE:

You've tried multiple avenues to make this kind of change happen. It's been beaten in the courts, it could be beaten in Parliament, we don't know yet. But, where will you go or what will you do next if that does happen, if it doesn't get up?

ANJALI:

I guess I made a little commitment to myself, after the Duty of Care court case was struck down, and that was to not let the Duty of Care concept die. And I haven't, because it's in federal parliament now. And I'm going to stick by that promise because what this youth led campaign has managed to do is unite people from all walks of life. If you look through the submissions list for the public inquiry, we have everyone from medical professionals, to parents, to Ben and Jerry's ice cream, making submissions in favour of the Duty of Care bill. This youth-led campaign has managed to bring so many people from so many walks of life to the table, and the only people currently dragging their feet are the major parties.

With so much public support behind us, and with this general acknowledgement that this duty of care isn't too radical, isn't too much to ask for, there's no way that we can let it die when it's brought so many people to the table. And so I can't fully tell you what happens next but this duty of care concept, we'll keep fighting for it, we'll keep campaigning for it and hopefully that'll have some impacts.

ANGE:

Anjali Sharma, thank you so much for your time today and thanks for speaking with me.

ANJALI:

Thanks for having me, Ange.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today...

Tasmanian Liberal leader Jeremy Rockcliff will lead the largest party in the state parliament, but is struggling to form majority government after the weekend’s election.

Newly elected state member Eric Abetz offered his support for Rockcliff, saying: “We don’t call him J-Rock for nothing. Not only does he rock, his leadership is absolutely rock solid.”

Tasmania has had a liberal government for 10 years, but remains the state with the lowest literacy rates in the country.

And,

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has visited the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza at Rafah, calling on Israel to allow aid to flow into the territory without restrictions.

Guterres said the scenes at the border spoke for themselves, he said, “A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.”

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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