A Roadmap for Climate Reform

It is an exciting time for climate policy in Australia. Legislation to establish a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for Australia has been brought before the new Australian Parliament. The Climate Change Bill 2022  enshrines targets of reducing Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to net zero by 2050.    […]

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Our legal solutions for the dire state of the environment 

By Rachel Walmsley, Head of Policy & law Reform and Nicole Sommer, Director, Healthy Environment & Justice Program  The latest State of The Environment Report is somehow both unsurprising but also deeply shocking. Take a deep breath and prepare for a sobering read if you delve into the details.  Prepared every five years, the report […]

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Australia must support UN General Assembly resolution recognising the right to a healthy environment

By Melanie Montalban (Managing Lawyer – ACT) and Frances Bradshaw (Senior Solicitor), Healthy Environment and Justice Program, Canberra  The UN General Assembly is meeting in New York this week starting 25 July 2022 to consider a resolution recognising the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (the ‘right to a healthy environment’). An earlier decision […]

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NSW follows suit and lists koalas as endangered 

By Senior Solicitor Cerin Loane  Following the Commonwealth’s decision earlier this year to upgrade the conservation status of koalas from vulnerable to endangered under national law, New South Wales has followed suit, uplisting the koala from vulnerable to endangered under the State’s Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. We now consider what implications this may have for the […]

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Civil society groups warn against police overreach in NSW climate defenders raid

Forty civil society organisations have expressed alarm at reports of police overreach in preemptive policing of protest, with NSW police conducting covert surveillance and a raid on climate activists north of Sydney on Sunday (June 19). Police had been covertly surveilling a private property where individuals linked to Blockade Australia were camped. Blockade Australia has […]

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EDO Submission in response to Draft Aquaculture Standards for Tasmania

EDO welcomes the opportunity to comment on Draft Aquaculture Standards for Tasmania. In this submission, we respond to This submission responds to the Draft Environmental Standard for Marine Finfish Farms and to the Draft Standardised Marine Farming Management Controls (as they relate to finfish farming). EDO’s submission also responds to broader concerns around the regulation […]

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EDO Submission on the ACT’s Planning Bill 2022

EDO welcomes the opportunity to comment on the ACT’s proposed Planning Bill 2022. The Bill, which is intended to replace the Planning and Development Act 2007 (ACT), now in force for 15 years, is the centrepiece for how development will be planned, decided and regulated in the ACT in the future. Development impacts the environment […]

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