Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Brian Coffey
Key terms/names
Adani, causal stories, developmentalism, ecocentrism/ecologism, Franklin River,
Indigenous Australians, irreversibility, Murray Darling Basin, non-government
organisations, resources, sustainability, tragedy of the commons, web of life
Environmental policy is a highly contested, critically important, and intellectually
interesting area of politics and policy. Environmental policy not only concerns the
relations between people and the forms of social co-ordination that they create
(i.e. the relations between states, markets and civil society) but also concerns the
fundamental relations between humans and other species (what is our place in
the web of life). Environmental policy re-energises the age-old question of ‘How
should we live?’ by reframing it as ‘How should we live on this planet, in ways
that sustain it, others, and ourselves?’ Put another way, environmental policy is
important because everything that we do as humans (as individuals, as employees
of companies, as consumers of goods and services, as members of a community, as
citizens of a country, and as inhabitants of planet earth) directly or indirectly has
environmental implications – we are part of nature and rely on it to survive.
Agoodexampleoftheconnectionbetweenhowweliveandtheenvironment
can be seen at a very simple level. At a local level, have you ever considered the
environmental implications of something as simple as washing your face? First,
wheredoesthewatercomefrom,howisittreated,andwhatisinvolvedingettingit
to your tap? Second, how often do you wash your face and what with (what packaging
Coffey, Brian (2019). Environmental policy. In Peter J. Chen, Nicholas Barry, John R. Butcher, David
Clune, Ian Cook, Adele Garnier, Yvonne Haigh, Sara C. Motta and Marija Taflaga, eds. Australian
politics and policy: senior edition. Sydney: Sydney University Press. DOI: 10.30722/sup.9781743326671
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