AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The Victorian government, supposed to be the bastion of progressiveness in this country, recently announced the abolition of Sustainability Victoria.

This is simply the latest in cuts and compromises across Australia.

The federal government passed weak environmental laws late last year. Sure, they’re better than what we had before, but what we had before only stopped two developments, one of which was a wind farm. They haven’t been able to stop fossil fuel developments.

The bar was in hell, and now it’s moved up to the mantle.

In addition, the government’s backing of a generative AI industry will be devastating. The infrastructure for it was directly responsible for weakening our emission targets:

We have recommended a lower bound that makes allowance for the intrinsic uncertainty of our analysis and transition risks (e.g. strong data centre growth…)

It will be calamitous for our waterways, for our air, for the health of people and animals as it pollutes the oceans of sea and sky. And without a strong sustainability sector to keep his government accountable, they will get away with it.

Across the Country

New South Wales has cut dozens of jobs from their EPA, while at the same time, they ravage native vegetation for a renewable energy project.

Queensland gutted the Environmental Defenders’ Office last year. The timid EPBC reforms from the federal government were too much for Queensland’s agriculture minister, none of whose colleagues holds a climate portfolio.

Western Australia is “cutting red tape” (read: ignoring environmental protection laws) to prioritise energy projects and reduce transparency. This is after a deal that allows Alcoa to continue mining, and which put such a huge monitoring burden on the regulator, they dropped 95% of their planned audits. Now, they are failing to audit 98% of their overall projects in the state. No, that’s not a typo:

The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation planned to audit 40 of the 485 projects subject to requirements from the environment minister in the 12 months to June 2024, but cut this to 10 projects: just two per cent of the total.

The Northern Territory needs its own bullet point list:

• They’re trying to give the Chief Minister (Premier equivalent) the power to exempt major projects from regulations.
  • They appointed a gas executive as “Territory Coordinator” to make it easier for private investors to get around safeguards.
  • The bill would exclude First Nations people from being involved in proposed developments on their land.
  • The Coordinator has the power to override 32 different laws.
  • A few days after the legislation passed, the Deputy Chief Minister quoted Trump’s infamous “drill, baby, drill”.
  • They’ve refused to release information on the amount of opposition to the bill.
• They stripped two environmental groups of funding as they introduced the legislation for the aforementioned Territory Coordinator.
• They’ve made a number of legislative changes, which I’m going to quote verbatim from the article I linked above:
  • 20 December 2024: changes to the Petroleum Act removed requirements for onshore fracking to be referred to the EPA and the large emitters policy was scrapped. 
  • 3 March 2025: Fracking Code of Practice gutted was so companies don’t need to report hazardous leaks to landowners or keep records of chemicals pumped into the environment. 
  • 27 March 2025: renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030 was scrapped.
  • 19 June 2025: 2030 emissions reduction targets were quietly abandoned.
  • 6 February 2025: plans announced to remove third-party merits review provisions, so communities can’t seek reviews of fracking, planning, and water decisions. 
• The current government got rid of the climate portfolio, and merged environment and water into land and planning. Whenever this happens, the environment always comes second to planning.
• The EPA’s emissions policy has been weakened.
• A new water action plan allows for double the amount of extraction from the Tindal Limestone Aquifer in the north of the territory. This will devastate the local environment and community, whose famous hot springs are likely to be affected.
• Thousands of hectares of native vegetation clearing is likely to go ahead. If approved, it would be a tripling of the Territory’s average land clearing rate.

I’ve been hearing from friends in the tertiary sector that they’ve been shattered, too. Various good sustainability teams around the nation have been quietly dismantled or reallocated to other work. There is, now, effectively none left, and you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t know people. None of them have announced these changes, knowing how deeply unpopular they would be in a society that wants to become more sustainable.

I’ve written about the travesty that is the dismantling of Monash’s Sustainable Development Institute. Flinders University has made six researchers redundant; some of those researchers studied the algal blooms which are now devastating the state. The University of Technology Sydney’s transdisciplinary school will not survive the university’s cuts; this school focused on inclusive futures. I’ve heard of another higher education sustainability team in New South Wales which has been let go, but I can’t find any mention of it online, so I’ll refrain from posting about it for now.

I deliberately haven’t mentioned the media, to echo their role in this. You won’t hear a peep from them, as a compliant, concentrated media class will refuse to report on any of it. They, in general, have done a poor job looking at trends in this country. They’re too insular, stuck in the daily back and forth over politics, never taking a step back to look at patterns in the landscape. Sure, they talk about job losses more broadly, but no one that I can see is making any connections between the disparate slash and burn announcements in sustainability, any other industry, or the economy more broadly.

Everything in this article consists of things I knew off the top of my head, or was able to find quickly. I’m sure there is plenty more out there I am not aware of. Please, please drop information in the comments if you know of it.

This entire piece is undercut by a deep-seated rage and helplessness that I don’t know what to do with. Whenever I become accustomed to the new depths my industry has been forced to plumb, something like the extermination of a well-respected government department enters the fray, and I am forced to start over with a new dollop of desperation heaped onto my shoulders.

When does it end?

What Next?

We’re not going to feel the full effects of this for a while. Systems, both natural and synthetic, will gradually start to fail, until we’re reminded of why these roles were deemed necessary¹ in the first place. Our universities will slowly and steadily drip down global impact rankings. And many of us will become acclimated to our new reality, as the proverbial frog in hot water.

While Trump and his influence plays a part, I don’t think it explains all of this. For years now, people in the sustainability sector have been wondering what would happen as big 2030 targets approached, and governments and organisations realised they would fail to meet them. This is, in part, an answer to that question. Rather than redouble their efforts, or admit they can’t make it but still try to do their best, they are simply dropping the people who would ask uncomfortable questions and hold them accountable.

I’d love to see a union or some other professional organisation for workers in the sustainability industry. Right now, we’re scattered across different unions depending on what our specific work is, or which industry we’re located within. A place for sustainability workers to meet, organise and strategise across sectors would be helpful for us, as a whole, to push back against this torrent dragging us under. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the industry — every sector needs to become more sustainable, so we need to be embedded across every sector — an organisation like this would allow people to connect with experts in other fields who could help them, and vice versa. We could build real, lasting solidarity that cuts across sectoral lines. Meeting at the pub once a month is great, but a large, respected body with reach would go a long way towards allowing us to fight back. Individualism is never the answer; we need to stick together.

I am one person, and I don’t have the resources or connections to set up such an organisation. If, by chance, someone reading this does, flick me a message and we’ll talk. If you’re aware of someone organising something like this, please put us in touch. Especially at the moment, as I am currently unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands which I would love to put towards building cross-sectoral sustainability solidarity.

1The article’s optimism about the future is laughable, especially with hindsight, but the historical sections are illuminating.

1. The article’s optimism about the future is laughable, especially with hindsight, but the historical sections are illuminating. ↩︎