People in the Goulburn Valley rarely think about their duty of care.
In fact, I would argue it is not something that ever crosses their minds.
It is, however, strangely and significantly something all of us understand. Without even thinking about it, we have an intrinsic interest in a duty of care — personal survival, and that of our kids, is a product of such behaviour, in both a practical and important way.
A more extensive consideration of the idea was brought to Shepparton recently via a virtual visit to the city by Canberra’s Hannah Vardy.
Hannah is working with a small but committed group, eager to see a duty of care embedded in Federal Government legislation.
The idea that the government should have a duty of care, particularly to children and young people, became a national issue when 17-year-old Anjali Sharma and several similar-aged counterparts, with an 81-year-old nun as the lead litigant, took the then Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, to court.
The then Coalition Federal Government challenged the result, obviously, and was successful in having the decision overturned.
Anjali and her teenage counterparts were not discouraged, and soon after she moved to Canberra in early 2023 to pursue a law course at the Australia National University, she found ACT independent Senator David Pocock was both sympathetic to and interested in supporting her push for a duty of care.
Interestingly, our politicians, regardless of their ideology, have repeatedly bleated, particularly since the High Court directed that asylum seekers held in detention be released, that a government’s first responsibility is the protection of the community.
It seems to me that they have played right into the hands of Anjali, her counterparts and Senator Pocock, as this is precisely what the teenagers and the ACT Senator seek through the Duty of Care act — the protection of the community; in this instance, young people, those without a vote.
The rapid advance of the climate crisis is now understood and accepted, both scientifically and anecdotally, and as life in much of Australia will be, by the end of the century, quite difficult for most and impossible for some, it will be hypocritical in the extreme for politicians to step away from the protection of the community — their “duty of care”.
As a family man with two young sons, Dr Peter Kalmus, who works with NASA studying the impact of heat on human health and ecosystems, says: “As a climate scientist, I am appalled, frustrated, disgusted. I am losing my faith in humanity. Everything here should be obvious to all. To have to write it down again and again is deeply painful. At the end of the day, if you take a moment to think about it, nothing is more important than a habitable planet. Everything else — all of humanity’s hopes and dreams and aspirations, all our happiness and love and growth — depends on it.”
Submissions for the Duty of Care bill closed in November, and the committee considering the bill has been granted an extension of time for the report until March 1 next year.
A formal parliamentary document says: “The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023 seeks to amend the Climate Change Act 2022 to require decision-makers to consider the wellbeing of current and future children when making certain decisions that are likely to contribute to climate change, including decisions that will increase scope one, two or three emissions.”
Considering our duty of care, the president of the Glasgow climate summit, COP26, Alok Sharma, said, in relation to events at COP28 in Dubai: “We are literally in the last chance saloon to save our children’s future.”
And so, as climate disruptions recognise or acknowledge neither international borders nor sovereignty, what is true in Glasgow, Dubai or anywhere else is equally relevant here in Shepparton.
And it is here that we teeter between hope and despair — too much of the former and people forget the essence of the story and move on; too much of the latter and they are frozen into inaction.
Just last week, I listened to Los Angeles Times reporter and author Rosanna Zia discuss that very issue. She said the dichotomy between hope and despair was central to her thinking as she wrote California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Changing Coastline.
Meanwhile, those of us looking for hope need to follow the work of Anjali, her counterparts and Senator Pocock as they push to have a duty of care injected into Federal Government decisions and actions and, of course, talk about the urgency of this issue with Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell.