Page 3916 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 29 November 2022
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with the Environment Defenders Office earlier this year to help launch their report into the concept of the right to a healthy environment in Australia. This report provided an extremely timely summary of the key issues, examples of how this right has been expressed and translated across the globe and what it might mean for the Australian government as well as other jurisdictional governments. This work complements the insightful and thoughtful submissions that have been provided by many stakeholders and contributed to the ACT government’s discussion.
I am really excited that we are now moving to the next steps on the details of the policy issues and the options about how we progress to introduce this right in the ACT. In doing so, we will continue our national leading work in recognising the importance of human rights and the importance of protecting our precious environment.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (10.47): I would just like to say a few words about Minister Cheyne’s statement on the government response to my motion earlier this year to introduce the right to a healthy environment into our Human Rights Act. I am really, really, really happy to see this come back and in such a great form.
The motion called on the ACT government to investigate the inclusion of the right to a healthy environment in our Human Rights Act and to conduct community consultation and meet with stakeholders to actively explore the inclusion of this right. It asked the ACT government to report back to the Assembly by today with the substance of these consultations and a time frame to introduce the right to a healthy environment into our legislation.
I moved this motion because it is something that the ACT Greens have felt really strongly about—and advocated for—for a long time. It was an election commitment of ours. It is key because of the crises that we, the ACT community, and the crises that we as a country and as a planet are experiencing—the climate crisis, the biodiversity extinction crisis and the pollution that we experience from over-production and over-consumption.
I would really like to sincerely thank Minister Cheyne for the important work she has led in consulting with the community and for the deep and heartfelt manner with which she has done that. I attended the launch of the consultation and the public panel discussion at the end of June, and I was really, really interested to hear the considered thoughts of Dr Caroline Hughes; Dr Helen Watchirs, our ACT Human Rights Commissioner; and those from civil society such as the Environmental Defenders; Office; and the business community. It was a really good beginning to the consultation, and I look forward to going through the outcomes of the detailed consultation that has been tabled here today.
I moved this motion back in February this year because it was long past due for the ACT to recognise this right. We are a really progressive jurisdiction, and it is high time for us to include this well-known right into our human rights legislation. I spoke at the time about the international community’s embracing of the right and its introduction and implementation in a lot of other countries around the world. I spoke about the UN Human Rights Council, who passed resolution in October 2021 on the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
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