The Full Federal Court has announced that on July 28-31, it will hear the appeal hearing in our landmark climate case in Naarm.
We are here at this stage in our journey because we have no choice but to continue this fight for our people, our communities, our Elders and our ancestors. Our islands are our mothers, and if we are forced to leave it will be like our umbilical cord will be cut forever. For us this means everything.
Last year, Justice Wigney in his decision found that the Torres Strait Islands, people and culture are being “ravaged by human induced climate change” and that climate change poses “an existential threat to the whole of humanity”. He said that the Australian Government does not “currently” have a legal duty of care to protect Torres Strait people from climate harm and that it is not open to a “single judge of this Court to expand the Australian common law of negligence”.
So we have taken this as an invitation to take our fight to the next level and bring our case in front of 3 judges at the Full Federal Court. Our legal team from Phi Finney McDonald and our incredible counsel team led by Fiona McLeod SC and Sera Merzabegian SC, will argue that the Judge made several errors in his decision and that the Commonwealth does owe a duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders in relation to climate change; the Commonwealth’s additional emissions are a legal cause of harm to Torres Strait Islanders; and cultural harm is compensable under Australian law.
For many years, we have fought for justice—not just for ourselves, but for our brothers and sisters on the mainland, and in the Pacific, the bushfire and the flood survivors, the farmers and the school kids.
This is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, so we have to take every opportunity to keep going. Let’s all battle this together, let’s fight climate change for our families and future generations to live on.
We would love for you to stand with us on this next stage of our journey. Please join us out the front of the Federal Court in Melbourne on July 28. Stay tuned over the coming weeks and months for updates and other ways to get involved.
As we prepare for the hearings, we’re reassured by your support. Koeyma eso (thank you). Together, we will speak the truth and make it impossible for Prime Minister Albanese and his government to turn their backs as our islands sink beneath the ocean and everyday Australians all over the Country come face to face with climate harm.
We will keep fighting, and we hope you will be there beside us.
Mura Kalmel Sipa (together we stand),
Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul