After Greens MLA and the ACT, the ACT is now the first Australian jurisdiction to recognize a healthy environment. Jo ClayThis afternoon, the Legislative Assembly approved the motion.
The ACTs will include the Right to a Healthy Environment 2004 Human Rights Act.
Our natural environment is everything. It is our air, water, soils, biodiversity, ecosystems, climate, and climate. We must live a healthy life, with clean water and healthy food.
Tara CheyneMinister for Human Rights in ACT, Jeremy Sullivan, stated that the government was looking at the implications of codifying the right-to-a healthy environment into the Act. A monthly meeting will be held by an inter-directorate committee.
The Justice and Community Safety Directorate has been discussing potential models with community stakeholders such as the Australian Human Rights Commission and Conservation Council ACT Region.
The government will soon hold a full public consultation regarding the right to a healthier environment.
It will provide a report to the Assembly by end of the year containing the substance of these consultations as well as a time frame for introducing the right.
Ms Clay stated that the right of a healthy environment was linked with a variety of rights in the existing system. Human Rights Act, including the right of life, the right culture and other rights of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders and the freedom to express yourself freely.
The right to a healthy and safe environment is an addition to existing rights. It recognizes that people can’t live a healthy lifestyle if the environment in which they live is unhealthy.
In ACT, the right to a healthy environment means that environmental protection agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate, which are responsible for environmental protection in the ACT, would be able to refer to this right whenever they evaluated the environmental impacts of a proposed project or enforce environmental undertakings.
Ms Clay stated that her motion was in line with the ACT Government declaring a Climate Emergency in 2019. This declaration entails a commitment to fast, science-based action to adapt and mitigate climate change and a transition towards net-zero emissions.
Ms Clay pointed out that Australia’s only state and territory does not have this right, but the majority of UN member countries do. The UN Human Rights Council recognized last year that the right to a healthy, clean, and sustainable environment is a human right essential for the enjoyment of human freedoms.
The South African Constitution, the Greek, Kenyan, and Peruvian Constitutions, the Indian, Indian and Guatemalan national and province laws, and regional agreements in the American Convention on Human Rights and African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights all provide this right.
