Mobilising government action on climate change to protect Indigenous land and culture

Our Islands Our Home is a campaign led by Torres Strait Islanders to protect their island homes. As part of the campaign, eight claimants from Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait Islands) also known as the #TorresStrait8 have brought a human rights complaint against the Australian Federal Government to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations over the Government’s inaction on climate change.

Issue

Torres Strait Islanders are on the frontline of the climate crisis, and urgent action is needed to ensure they can remain on their Islands. Right now, king tides, erosion, inundation and coral bleaching are threatening the homes and cultures of Torres Strait Islander people, while the Australian Government refuses to address the climate crisis.

The Torres Strait 8 are calling for Australia to drastically reduce emissions and invest in protecting their islands against rising sea levels. At the current rate of rising sea levels, the Torres Strait Islands will be under water within about 10 years, forcing the relocation and loss of culture and way of life for some of Australia’s First Nations communities.

Response

350.org, the Gur A Baradharaw Kod (BDK) Torres Strait Land and Sea Council and ClientEarth are partnering on the Our Islands Our Home campaign to raise public awareness of the landmark legal case, seeking to shift the narrative on climate change and advocate for concrete change for Indigenous Australians on the frontline of the climate crisis.

Despite being amongst some of the most adversely impacted First Nations communities in the world, Torres Strait Islanders have not had their voices elevated in a campaign like this before. While not binding, this UN case could set a precedent and place global pressure on Australia to commit to climate action.

Impact Update

On September 23 2022 the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the Australian Government is violating its human rights obligations to Torres Strait Islanders by failing to act on climate change.

In its decision, the Committee agreed with the complaint stating that:

• Climate change was indeed currently impacting the claimants’ daily lives;
• To the extent that their rights are being violated; and,
• That Australia was breaching its human rights obligations to the people of the Torres Strait by failing to cut its greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough.
• The committee majority found that Australia’s poor climate record is a violation of their right to family life and right to culture under the global human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
• A minority also found that the Government had violated their right to life.

The campaign is now building on this win by calling on the Government to take urgent action to ensure the safe existence of the islands. A petition with more than 47,000 signatures will be presented by Torres Strait Eight members to the Australian Government at Parliament House in late 2022.

Read more: Torres Strait Islanders win historic human rights legal fight against Australia

Elevating the voices of communities facing socio-economic disadvantage 

The Economic Media Centre identifies and equips spokespeople on economic issues, and connects them with journalists to get their voices into mainstream media.

Issue

During the pandemic in 2020, community voices were missing from the media coverage of economic issues in Australia’s major daily newspapers. The prevailing narrative centred on key messages of austerity, funding cuts and the burden of government debt, reinforcing a narrative that looking after people is costly and unsustainable. While many civil society groups had policy solutions to address the challenges presented by Covid-19, they could not get traction in the media.

Response

The Impact Fund provided core funding for the launch of the EMC in 2020 to begin identifying and training spokespeople from different backgrounds and support them to engage with the media effectively. The EMC now helps place media stories that draw on a diverse range of people with economic expertise and knowledge, alongside people with lived experience, to speak to the critical economic issues facing Australia.

The Impact Fund community provided further funding in 2022 to support the Economic Media Centre to work more closely with ACOSS one of its founding partners. ACOSS has unrivalled access to key decision-makers in the Federal Government and exceptional media reach.

Progress update

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• Building media expertise in the civil society sector: EMC has so far delivered media training to 330 media spokespeople, which has directly resulted in securing nearly 6,000 media stories.
• Influencing public policy and debate: EMC played a key role in building public pressure that resulted in the Federal Government committing $3.4 billion for women’s health, safety and economic wellbeing in the May 2021 budget.

What the Impact Fund’s support means

“The Impact Fund connected us with funders who understood the crucial role that people with lived experience can play in shifting debate for a more inclusive economy.” – Kirsty Albion, Executive Director, Australian Progress

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

Grants

• 2020 ‘Reimagining Australia’ Large Grants round: $110,000 in core funding
• 2022 Collaborations Large Grants round: $106,500 in core funding

Getting to net-zero by changing the story on gas

350 Australia and the Climate Council are working to take the social and political licence away from the fossil fuel industry and build a broad movement of people and communities opposed to gas extraction. Together they are helping create the conditions that make it deeply unattractive for politicians and financiers to support opening up new gas fields.

Issue

In 2020, the Australian Government threw its support behind a massive expansion of the Australian gas industry, and has since announced $1.5 billion in subsidies. There is an urgent need to prevent these large new gas fields being developed, and ensure we move to renewable energy solutions instead.

Response

350 Australia and the Climate Media Centre (Climate Council) are working together to shift the narrative on gas, which is essential for building the political, financial, and community momentum to end gas expansion and build climate solutions instead. These groups bring together expertise in messaging and research, and shift power from the fossil fuel lobby to local communities.

Grants

• 2022 Large Grants round: $100,000

Mapping laws and policies that have impacted the lives of First Nations people since 1788

Towards Truth is a collaboration between the Indigenous Law Centre and the Justice and Equity Centre identifying, analysing and cataloguing original government documents, scholarly materials, and commentary, to provide an accessible website that will support First Nations’ community truth-telling practices.

Issue

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples came together in 2017 to make the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’. Here is an excerpt: “Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future. These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.”

Response

The Uluru Statement seeks constitutional reforms so Indigenous people can take their rightful place in their own country. The Statement calls for the establishment of a First Nations’ Voice enshrined in the Constitution. Truth-telling about our joint history supports the Makarrata Commission, which is a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations.

Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW and the Justice and Equity Centre are working together on the ‘Towards Truth’ project to provide practical, foundational support for the truth-telling process. They will systematically examine law and policy that have impacted First Nations people since 1788; no one has ever done this before.

Grants

• 2022 Large Grants round: $100,000

Reducing undue corporate influence and protecting the right of charities to speak up

The #OurDemocracy campaign is a nationwide movement of people and organisations who want a healthy Australian democracy which works for us, not just for the powerful few.

The Stronger Charities Alliance was formed in 2017 in response to a number of bills which would have silenced charities on issues of national importance. The vision of the alliance is of a thriving not-for-profit sector, where charities are empowered to advocate for lasting change in pursuit of their charitable purposes.

#OurDemocracy: Issue + Response

With our climate at crisis point and the global pandemic increasing the gap between rich and poor, we need a strong democracy more than ever. We need a democracy that can deliver the outcomes that will protect people, the planet and future generations.

Politicians have little incentive to strengthen weak lobbying and political donation rules and the lack of a federal anti-corruption watchdog means powerful industries wield disproportionate influence in our democracy – they are getting outcomes that put their profits ahead of the wellbeing of everyone else.

The #OurDemocracy campaign was developed by three organisations – the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) and the Australian Democracy Network (ADN), together with the input of over 30 more. These core organisations continue to develop the solutions and work on the campaign, but just as our democracy belongs to all Australians, the #OurDemocracy campaign is a movement of people and organisations passionate about making our democracy fairer for all. 

The Framework for a Fair Democracy has been endorsed by organisations that work right across the spectrum of important issues–from environmental organisations, human rights advocates, health groups to churches– with each taking action to see it become law.

Stronger Charities Alliance: Issue + Response

Charities and community groups make an enormous contribution to the public good whether through running a homeless shelter, tackling family violence, or protecting the environment. Yet in recent years we have seen powerful actors make repeated attacks on the charity sector’s ability to speak up on such issues. Through the Hands Off Our Charities Alliance, ADN and HRLC work with the charities sector to resist attacks on our ability to advocate and to promote positive reform.

The HRLC enhances the capacity of civil society to effectively and collectively respond to new threats with expert legal analysis and advice. For example, in 2021 in response to new regulations which could have seen charities deregistered for supporting protest actions, the HRLC obtained advice from senior counsel on the regulations as soon as they were made public, published an explainer and gave online briefings to help organisations understand how the new rules would impact their work, drafted the HOOC joint submission to government opposing the rules, and helped lead on overall strategy to make sure the regulations were ultimately scrapped.

Giving a platform to farmers on the frontline of climate change

Farmers for Climate Action (FCA) is a movement of farmers, agricultural leaders and rural Australians working to ensure farmers are a key part of the solution to climate change. As the only farmer-led organisation that specialises in climate action, FCA works across the agricultural and climate sectors to manage risks and find opportunities to adapt to, and mitigate, climate change.

Issue

Agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change, yet there has been little resourcing to support the agriculture industry in Australia to adapt. In the absence of a clear, coordinated approach to climate change, agricultural emissions are unlikely to be substantively reduced within a meaningful timeframe and opportunities for carbon capture are not likely to be realised. 

Response

FCA has been working with farmers to build awareness of the effect of climate change on farming families and shift the prevailing narrative to see farmers as part of the solution rather than an obstacle to climate action. This work has served as the foundation for FCA to build bipartisan support for a national strategy on climate change and agriculture.

Progress update

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• Growing support for net-zero by 2050: Backed by National Farmers’ Federation in August 2020 and the National Party in October 2021.
• National strategy on climate change and agriculture: In response to momentum built by FCA and other advocates, the Federal Government has developed the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2021-2025, published in October 2021.

What the Impact Fund’s support means

“Farmers are on the frontlines of climate change and, as some of the most trusted spokespeople on the issue, they are changing the conversation on climate change in rural Australia … Impact Funders should take great pride in what we have achieved so far.” 

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

Grants

• 2018 Large Grants round: $125,000 for core funding (over three years)

Progressing the Uluru Statement and its ambitions for a better Australia for everyone

As the largest consensus of First Nations peoples on a proposal for substantive recognition in Australian history, the road to the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a long one even without mentioning the decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism that came before it.

Issue

Over a decade since the Council of Australian Governments agreed to a coordinated approach to addressing disadvantage in First Nations communities, there is a consensus among First Nations peoples that the gap in health, social and economic outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia cannot be addressed through more research and program funding alone – a different approach is needed. The problem is structural and the solution needs to be informed by First Nations through a process they identify as meaningful to them.

Response

The Uluru Statement from the Heart was issued to the Australian people in 2017 as a way forward. The Indigenous Law Centre (ILC) at UNSW is the backbone organisation for the Statement that coordinates the ongoing national dialogue process to ensure First Nations voices remain at the heart of delivering on Voice, Treaty, Truth—the three pathways to justice set out in the Statement.

Utilising a hub and spoke model, local communities have identified leaders to represent them at National Uluru Dialogues, taking place at least three times a year. Furthermore, the ILC has been undertaking extensive research to support First Nations communities to make evidence-based and informed decisions essential to successful constitutional reform negotiations, while also developing a longer-term intergenerational vision for self-determination by supporting emerging First Nations researchers, critical thinkers and leaders.

PROGRESS UPDATE

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• Increased awareness and support: The Uluru Statement was recognised by the Sydney Peace Prize, taking out the 2021 award for its ‘historic offering of peace’. 90% of submissions to the Government’s Voice co-design process in favour of a constitutionally protected Voice to Parliament.
• Ongoing leadership dialogues: The campaign has facilitated the Uluru Youth Summit In Cairns and Yarrabah, constitutional workshops with legal experts, and a workshop at UNSW Sydney that brought together the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars.
• Collaboration with fellow Impact Partner, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre: ILC has worked with PIAC to broaden the reach of the Statement by translating it into more than 60 languages. The two organisations are now collaborating on the Towards Truth project to gather and analyse laws and policies that have impacted Indigenous peoples since 1788.

GRANTS

• 2017 Large Grants round: $150,000 in campaign support

Shining a light on dark money in politics

Big Deal is a wake-up call about the frightening extent to which money has infiltrated politics. Christiaan van Vuuren is an everyday Aussie – a comedian with provocative instincts, but also a father with a keen sense of fairness and justice. Big Deal begins with Christiaan mocking the fact that the US democracy has been taken over by big money, but he soon realises that the situation in his home country is not all that different. A wake-up call about the frightening extent to which money has infiltrated politics, Christiaan’s unlikely journey shows us why we should care, and how we might work together to ensure our democracy is safeguarded from being sold to the highest bidder.

Issue

Significant money is being provided to political parties in the form of donations that have the potential to bias political action. Together both major parties have taken over $100 million from corporate donors since 2012. Current laws limit what needs to be reported to the public. This makes it hard for Australians to get a clear line of sight to who is providing funding and what influence they might be having on political decisions.

Response

Supported in development by Shark Island Institute, the team at Jungle Entertainment began work on a documentary – what became Big Deal – to build public awareness of the scale and implications of unchecked political donations. ACF worked with the production team to link the documentary to civil society stakeholders, including members of the #OurDemocracy campaign – a campaign seeking to engage the broader public to push for reforms to make the Australian democratic system stronger, fairer and more representative.

Progress Update

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• The film has so far had an audience reach of over 5.3 million in theatres, online, on the ABC and in media coverage. 
• The promotion of the #OurDemocracy campaign via the Big Deal documentary has so far led to 12,000 active members.

What the Impact Fund’s support means

“Impact Funders came on really early and made all the difference to the quality of the story we could tell… they totally understood the power of this film.” – Leeanne Torpey, Big Deal Impact Producer

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

Grants

• 2019 Large Grants round: $172,000 for development of impact campaign

Protecting Australia’s gun safety laws

The Australian Gun Safety Alliance (AGSA) is a broad coalition of voices representing the interests of the community in ensuring that we maintain vigilance on issues of gun safety.

Issue

When the Impact Fund supported the establishment of AGSA in 2017, the gun lobby in Australia was gaining influence in the debate over gun safety legislation. Without a strong alternative voice to that lobby, there was a real risk that Australia’s gun safety protections would be watered down. 

Response

Founding members of AGSA recognised that a national response was required to counter this threat and sought to build a national coalition of broad-based community and professional organisations to advocate for the protection of Australia’s gun safety framework. Initial members articulated a clear vision and approach for organisations to work together on the issue, and engaged in a series of discussions with organisations with an aligned interest in gun safety, leading to the formation of the Australian Gun Safety Alliance.

Progress update

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• The establishment of a strong, broad-based Alliance to advocate for gun safety: AGSA is now made up of over 30 organisations across Australia and acts as a strong and recognised voice for gun safety. 
• Influencing policy dialogue and debate: AGSA is now a recognised gun safety voice at the policy table and is influencing policy decisions, including the implementation of a permanent National Firearm Amnesty in 2021.

What the Impact Fund’s support means

“We bring those voices to the table when it comes to firearm safety, and we will forever be thankful to the Impact Fund community, who saw an opportunity to take this need off the page and into action.” – Stephen Bendle, Convenor, AGSA

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

Grants

• 2017 Large Grants round: $70,000 for seed funding (over two years)
• 2020 ‘Supporting Our Partners’ Covid-19 Agile Grant: $20,000 in core funding

Raising the rate of income support to keep Australians out of poverty

The campaign to Raise the Rate for Good is key to reducing poverty and inequality in Australia. The goal of the Raise the Rate for Good campaign is to fix our social security safety net for good so that it keeps people out of poverty, with an income of at least $70 a day.

ISSUE

Australians relying on unemployment payments are at significant risk of living in poverty, living on a base rate of $40 per day before Covid-19. Prior to adjustments made in response to Covid-19, these payments had not increased in real terms in 25 years, making it difficult for people receiving them to afford the basics. The low rate of government allowances, even taking into account the recent Covid-19 adjustments, continues to contribute to inequality in Australia, causing people who rely on payments to fall further behind.

RESPONSE

The Raise the Rate for Good campaign seeks to change the prevailing public narrative about people who rely on income support. It works to do that by building a grassroots and online campaign and mobilising a diverse range of high-profile influencers to build parliamentary support for change. The campaign is informed by research generated through the ACOSS and UNSW Poverty and Inequality Partnership with UNSW (also supported by the Impact Fund).

PROGRESS UPDATE

UPDATED MARCH 2022

• Community voices amplified: Over 15,000 supporters have signed onto the campaign with an unprecedented number of people with lived experience engaging in the campaign.
• Permanent increase to income support achieved: In response to pressure built through the campaign, heightened by the impacts of Covid-19, the Federal Government announced a permanent $50 increase to fortnightly income support payments. While criticised as being insufficient and continuing to allow Australians to live below the poverty line, the increase is significant and represents an additional $3 billion a year in support for vulnerable Australians.

WHAT THE IMPACT FUND’S SUPPORT MEANS

“Thanks to the campaign and support from Impact Funders, we were able to convince the Federal Government to introduce the Coronavirus Supplement, and almost double JobSeeker during the pandemic.” – Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO, ACOSS

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

GRANTS

• 2019 Large Grants round: $150,000 in campaign support
• 2020 ‘Supporting Our Partners’ Covid-19 Agile Grant: $55,000 in campaign support