Our Broken Environment Laws

Jess Harwood’s cartoon reads like an infographic in the way it distils data, policy and history, but this is an infographic with humour and bite. Two months after it was published the environmental protection laws Harwood alludes to, and their impact on fossil fuel projects, were tested by the bringing of the case to the Federal Court of Australia. The Environment Council of Central Queensland lost its appeal against two coal mine extensions approved by the Minister of the Environment and Water. In handing down its judgement, the court drew attention to the ‘ill-suitedness’ of current laws.