‘The history of the climate movement is very white’: how youth campaigners took on a mining giant and won

Murrawah Johnson and Monique Jeffs have been awarded a Young Voltaire human rights award for their victory over Waratah Coal’s Galilee basin coal project

Murrawah Johnson was on the phone with a solicitor, preparing for a historic court case, when she suddenly went into labour.

The 28-year-old Wirdi woman had been fighting a David-and-Goliath-type battle against a Clive Palmer-owned project for Australia’s largest thermal coal mine in the Galilee basin.

Johnson was not only heavily pregnant – she had also contracted Covid-19.

“I was in labour and I was on the phone with the lawyers right up to the last minute trying to organise the welcome to country,” she tells Guardian Australia.

“I was like, ‘oh I’m just here at the hospital. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think I’m having my baby yet’.”

Within a fortnight, and after testing negative for Covid-19, Johnson spoke outside the Brisbane land court with her newborn baby ahead of the first hearings last year.

Months later, a Queensland court would make a historic ruling and recommend the refusal of the Galilee basin coal project on the grounds that it would infringe upon the human rights of future generations.

Johnson and her colleague Monique Jeffs are now being recognised for their backbreaking work on the case. As the co-directors of Youth Verdict, the pair have been awarded a Young Voltaire human rights award from Liberty Victoria for their landmark victory.

The $6.5bn proposal by Waratah Coal was rejected by the Queensland government in April. If approved, it would have removed 40m tonnes a year from four underground mines.

Jeffs, 23, says the matter set a powerful precedent as the first Australian case linking human rights and climate change.

“We were really happy and relieved when we won because there are so many stories of power, money and influence winning and community and the environment losing,” Jeffs says.

Youth Verdict’s case was first launched in 2020 and had initially stemmed from an ambition to test the state’s relatively new Human Rights Act. But it soon became clear that First Nations people needed to be involved.

“We [knew] First Nations justice can’t be separated from environmental justice. All of us were white settlers, non-Indigenous people. We were really conscious of that and thinking: how do we act in this space?” Jeffs says.

“The history of the climate movement is very white.”

Johnson was initially asked to provide evidence in the case by the Environmental Defenders Office, a non-profit that took up the case. But she knew she had more to offer the team.

“I wanted to be part of the decision-making and strategy … I wanted a court case that would win and knock it out of the park … I saw it as an opportunity to really break new ground,” she says.

As a youth spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou family council, Johnson already had eight years’ experience under her belt fighting against another behemoth – Adani, now known as Bravus.

Under her stewardship, the case against Waratah Coal achieved another first, with the court travelling to take on-country testimonies from First Nations witnesses in Gimuy (Cairns) and the Erub and Poruma Islands of the Torres Strait.

“We had six court cases [against Adani] and lost every single one of them but ... if Eddie Mabo hadn’t gone to court, we’d still be living under the doctrine of terra nullius,” she says.

“When [the courts] work in our favour, it’s monumental and creates a swell for advancement in First Nations rights in this country.”

Youth Verdict now has its sights set on its next avenues of litigation. As a new mother, Johnson is determined to conserve the country for those inheriting it – like her now 18-month-old daughter.

“First Nations people, we’re the oldest surviving culture in the world so we have a lot to teach,” she says.

“It’s really about prioritising the future that younger people want to inherit … and it has to be guided by First Nations principles.”

Photograph: Nathan Gibson - Youth Verdict’s co-directors, Murrawah Johnson (left) and Monique Jeffs, have been awarded the 2023 Young Voltaire Award after their historic court victory against Waratah Coal.