Implications of Precautionary Principle for Sustainable Development in Australia

Sustainability court cases and the
legislative changes in Australia for
sustainability

The process sustainability can be understood from the observation of the natural systems
where the system is self sustaining, diverse and able to produce balanced ecological needs.
The civilisation runs on the resources that are collected from the natural environment. The
past human experience and the current impending problems is forcing the current world
civilisation to think sustainably where the destruction and damage related protective approach
can be implemented into the system (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). These protective
measures in the form of legislation and its implication would regulate the social science,
environment, technology and the businesses. The current world policy direction generated
from the ‘world summit on social development’ of 2005 focuses on three pillar of
sustainability (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). These pillars are the social development,
economic development and the environmental protection for sustainability. In the
environmental protection part the approach is to protect the lives, livelihood and the heath of
people by managing the different environmental factor, pollution and the climate change. The
current sustainable approach of operation came a long way through the continuous
development of legislations and its implementation (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). In the
current essay two such environment related case would be discussed to understand their
implication for the legislative development.
The policy development in the world for the environmental protection is happening for a long
time. One of such event was the ‘Rio Declaration’ of UNCED’s earth summit in the year
1992. Some of the precautionary measures were mentioned in that summit (Moore and Gross,
2012). Soon after that the courts in Australia began to embrace those principles. One of the
prominent cases in that regard was the ‘Leatch v National Parks and Wildlife Service’. This
was one of the earliest cases that started the discussion of these principles for the
environmental protection in Australia through a meaningful approach. ‘New south Wales’
‘Land and Environment Court’ was approached to appeal for the process (Zander,
2010). ‘National Parks and Wildlife’ director general licence issue to the ‘Shoalhaven City
Council’ a local authority of government for killing the endangered fauna was main factor for
the revision of merit of this action. This was done for the proposed construction of road. The
‘national parks and wildlife ACT 1974’ s92B(5) was in this case for the class 1 suite by Ms
May. The specific Act was used from the perspective of new amendment on 1991 that
‘Endangered Fauna (Interim Protection) Act’ where the better protection for the fauna was
amended into the ACT (Austlii.edu.au, 1993). This amendment is also a result of another
court case ‘Corkill v Forestry Commission’. From the director general (DG) office a proper

survey was done with regard to the precautionary principle application from the state,
national and international jurisdictions.
The reply from DG was that the incorporation of these principles is already done in the
domestic law prior to the development of those principles as most of those are the
commonsense. Under the uncertainty of scientific exercise the principle are the tools to avoid
the irreversible and serious harm to the situation of environment (Zander, 2010). During these
types of ignorant and uncertain situations the decision maker needs to maintain caution
(Austlii.edu.au, 1993). Upon hearing the case and judging the merit of the case the judge
commented that the purpose, scope and subject matter of the discussed Act shows
consistency of relevance for the adoption of the precaution principles for the endangered
fauna as the irreversible and serious harm to the endangered fauna is a possibility under the
uncertain state of current knowledge (Zander, 2010). This application grant for the
precautionary principle in this case implied also assessment inadequacy for the road project.
In this policy and legislative matter the nest case is the ‘Nicholls v Director-General of
National Parks and Wildlife’. This time court showed somewhat mixed view in that regard.
This verdict has accepted the earlier verdict where the practicality of the precautionary
approach is validated but they did not considered that an obligatory in nature (Shepheard and
Martin, 2011). The court stated that the principles are the international commitment of
Australia that is political in nature. This time the court stated that this international obligation
cannot be the base for the court to determine the endangered fauna’s kill or take licence
decision merit revision (Shepheard and Martin, 2011). Here the court agreed to evaluate the
fauna and environmental impact statement. At the final judgement the court agreed on the
licence issue but the condition was that the ongoing assessment or the survey should be
updated to DG and that may result in revoking or implement variation in the licence (Moore
and Gross, 2012). Therefore this verdict somehow changed the perspective of precautionary
principle. A more flexible approach is directed here which is based on the fact or evaluation
based decision making and not complete suspension of the decision making under the
uncertain situation.
Another important case for the precautionary principle is the ‘Greenpeace Australia Ltd v
Redbank Power Company Pty Ltd and Singleton Council’. In the case the Greenpeace
Australia Ltd acted as the objector of third party nature. The appeal was made in the court for
land and environment against the Singleton Council (Williams and Williams, 2016). The