Learn to Swim

On 15 July the Federal Court of Australia ruled that the federal government did not owe Torres Strait Islanders a duty of care to protect them from global warming. Guda Maluyligal Traditional Owners Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai had sued the federal government, arguing that it had breached its ‘duty of care’ to protect the islands’ residents from the impacts of climate change and that their ‘homes could disappear beneath the rising seas, making [them] Australia’s first climate change refugees’.