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

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

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

Protecting asylum seeker health rights during Covid-19

The Asylum Seeker Health Rights Project aims to secure humane standards of medical and mental health care for asylum seekers in Australian immigration detention centres. The Project is led by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).

Issue

Despite the high levels of trauma suffered by asylum seekers and the damage to mental health caused by long-term, indefinite detention, conditions in immigration detention centres – including rights of access to essential health care – are unprotected in legislation. The Federal Court has described this as a ‘legislative vacuum’.  

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed a significant threat to detained asylum seekers, who are unable to practice the social distancing required to minimise the risks of infection: sleeping in small, shared rooms; eating in overcrowded food halls; sharing bathrooms; and interacting constantly with external staff. Many men and women in detention are at heightened risk of serious illness because they are living with specific comorbidity factors like diabetes, renal conditions, certain cancers and respiratory issues.

Response

Through test cases and policy advocacy, PIAC is working to change the system. When Covid-19 hit, PIAC moved quickly to file a complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman for 14 detained asylum seekers. 

Progress update

UPDATED MARCH 2022
  • Four of the 14 clients from the complaint filed by PIAC have since been released from detention, and the Ombudsman has committed to meet regularly with PIAC. 
Watch: Update from Lucy Geddes, Project Lead

What the Impact Fund’s support means

“It was heartening to see how quickly Impact Funders supported our response to the impact of Covid-19 in Australian immigration detention centres.” – Lucy Geddes, Senior Solicitor, PIAC

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

Grants

  • 2020 Covid-19 Agile Grant: $55,000 in campaign support

Protecting public interest journalism

Established in 2018, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI) is investigating a sustainable future for public interest journalism. PIJI envisages a sustainable and diverse public interest journalism landscape in Australia. Through research, the organisation helps move Australia towards achieving this vision.

Issue

The news media landscape in Australia is experiencing an unprecedented industry disruption, resulting in news media closures and industry consolidation. Those shifts have raised concerns about media diversity and access to public interest journalism, particularly in regional and rural Australia.

Response

PIJI was established to build awareness of the role of public interest journalism and the threat to it; research options to address that threat; and lobby government to support the industry to transition to a new, sustainable model of operation. In collaboration with the Susan McKinnon Foundation, the Impact Fund provided funding to support PIJI’s initial setup, launch and ongoing operation.

Disclosure: Eric Beecher, Chair of Australian Communities Foundation, is also on the Board of Public Interest Journalism Initiative.

Investing in social and affordable housing

Everybody’s Home is a national campaign to fix the housing crisis. It was launched in 2018 by a coalition of housing, homelessness and welfare organisations to achieve the change needed so everybody has a safe and decent place to live.

Issue

Every night more than 116,000 Australians are homeless. Over the past decades, rents have been growing faster than incomes, particularly for low income earners. That means more people paying more rent than they can afford, and more people left without a home at all. Homeownership has been declining for decades as well, particularly among young people. The Covid-19 crisis supercharged homelessness, with tens of thousands more Australians losing their homes.

Across Australia home prices and rents are skyrocketing, pushing more people into housing stress. Our shrinking proportion of social housing means there is nowhere to go for families pushed out of the rental market.

Response

Everybody’s Home is working together to call on Australian governments to bring balance back to the system.

The Impact Fund supported the campaign in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, as more Australians were being forced into homelessness. But this moment also presented an opportunity: the prospect of achieving a significant social housing investment is also greater now that social housing construction can contribute to economic stimulus, more so than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis.

Everybody’s Home is continuing to campaign for investment in social housing that so everybody has a place to cal lhome.

Shifting the politics of the recovery towards climate and quality jobs

Jobs, Climate, Justice is a campaign led by 350.org Australia in collaboration with trade unions and the climate movement, seeking to shift the politics of the economic recovery after Covid towards quality jobs and a renewable future.

Issue

At the height of Australia’s first wave of Covid-19, the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission was established, including a Manufacturing Taskforce to lead a ‘gas-fired recovery’ out of the current crisis. The Taskforce’s proposed recovery ignores the multitude of research from both climate NGOs and the trade union movement that demonstrates investing in high-quality jobs in renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing is the best path out of this crisis. If the proposed push for public subsidies for gas is successful, it will be a disaster for the climate, for Traditional Owners fighting to protect their land, for workers who deserve high-quality employment.

Response

350.org Australia has been working with trade unions and the climate movement to develop a collaborative campaign – Jobs, Climate Justice – and shift the politics of the economic recovery away from fossil fuel subsidies and towards quality jobs in renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing. This work fits within broader efforts by the trade union movement and climate NGOs to influence economic recovery spending, but adds a necessary intervention: finding common cause across the demands of organised labour and the demands of the climate movement, with justice at the centre.

Contact Us
Level 6, 126 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne VIC 3002

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live, learn and work. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Australian Communities Foundation is a proudly inclusive organisation and an ally of LGBTQIA+ communities and the movement toward equality.