About the Climate Change Amendment Bill

Children's health and wellbeing

The Bill aims to promote and protect children's health and wellbeing as a mandatory consideration when making decisions that would result in significant greenhouse gas emissions.

This approach is commendable both for recognising the importance of considering children as a unique group with their own vulnerabilities, and simultaneously for linking climate considerations and environmental law, as established by international principles but so far lacking in Australia’s legislated framework.

This approach embodies the promotion of intergenerational equity, an approach Australia has committed to on the international stage, both concerning seeking to limit the adverse effects of climate change and relating to the protection of child rights.

However, the Bill is still not consistent with Australia’s international obligations and commitments.

General Comment No. 26 on the Convention of the Rights of the Child emphasises the need for a consistent global response to address the adverse effects of environmental degradation on the enjoyment of all children’s rights.

Recommendations

The Commission makes six substantive recommendations for consideration.

• Recommendation 1: The Commission recommends that the CCA be amended so that its objects include the promotion and protection of intergenerational equity by requiring the full range of children’s human rights to be considered by persons making decisions under certain relevant Acts that would result in the significant emission of greenhouse gases.
• Recommendation 2: The Commission recommends that Recommendation 1 is given effect in a manner consistent with Australia’s international obligations and commitments and recognised best practice. To achieve this, the Commission recommends that the statutory duty in Recommendation 1 require relevant decision makers to consider the best interests of the child as a primary consideration when making relevant decisions under a relevant Act.
• Recommendation 3: The Commission recommends that statutes that empower persons to make relevant decisions that could result in the significant emission of greenhouse gases be amended to note the obligation on those decision makers set out in the CCA (as set out at Recommendations 1 and 2), to treat the best interests of the child as a primary consideration when making the relevant decision.
• Recommendation 4: The Commission recommends that the CCA (or a related instrument) be amended so that the best interests of the child be required to be determined through a Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA).
• Recommendation 5: The Commission recommends that the CCA be amended to require decision makers to publish their reasons for decision, including their CRIA outcomes, and publish a version of those reasons and outcomes in a child-friendly language, and in languages other than English that may be in widespread use by the children likely to be impacted by the decision.
• Recommendation 6: The Commission recommends that matters set out in these submissions, and these recommendations, be used by government and other policy makers to guide future legislation and policy that is concerned with the impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, or intergenerational equity, as a means of aligning intended outcomes with Australia’s human rights obligations and commitments.