Louise Morris
Louise is an award-winning advocate with 20 years’ experience encompassing climate, energy, forest protection, and law reform in the not-for-profit sector, and federal politics before joining The Australia Institute.
Evidence of seismic blasting's harms are clear, but policy has not caught up
A growing body of scientific research shows seismic blasting seriously harms marine ecosystems from the smallest plankton to the largest whales. Yet, seismic blasting remains routine because it sits at the beginning of the fossil fuel extraction process.
Australia only has one shot at taxing our gas exports, and we’re missing out
When Russia invaded Ukraine, it triggered something far less discussed in Australia: one of the biggest unplanned gas export profits in modern history. Gas prices spiked. Exporting companies made off like bandits. Australians failed to reap any benefit from our exported gas price spike
The Wrap: Gaslit politics
For years, the idea of properly taxing gas exports has been treated as politically untenable - something governments approached dismissively, if at all. But as global conflict pushes up energy prices and gas company profits surge, that dismissiveness is starting to look like negligence.
Australians are footing the bill for climate damage while fossil fuel export profits soar. We can fix this.
Australia is already paying the price of climate change. The evidence appears almost daily on the national emergency map. Just this week alone, major flooding has inundated communities in Queensland, with homes and businesses flooded in Bundaberg. Flooding across the Northern Territory has forced evacuations in remote communities.
Good News: Australia could finally remove wildlife poison from shop shelves
Australia’s wildlife is facing a quiet and unnecessary threat, not just from habitat loss, bushfires or climate change, but from something sitting on the shelves of hardware stores and supermarkets, and in turn households: rat poison.
Make it make sense: Pay to see the Twelve Apostles, but gas companies drill for gas and dump right beside them tax free?
Visitors to the Twelve Apostles along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road will soon be asked to pay an entry fee, with the Vic State Government arguing it’s ‘only fair’ that visitors contribute to maintaining one of Australia’s most visited natural landmarks.
Why is the war pushing energy prices up? Australia has plenty of gas, there is no shortage.
By simply diverting uncontracted gas to the domestic market before it is exported, and putting a 25% tax on the contracted export gas to bring some much needed revenue back to Australians, it would also reveal something the gas industry rarely acknowledges: Australia does not have a gas shortage problem. It has a gas export problem.
Darwin needs a Clean Air Act, not lucky escapes
When INPEX Australia admitted it had under-reported benzene and toluene emissions from its Ichthys LNG facility by orders of magnitude, Territorians were told we were “lucky” nothing worse happened.
You simply can’t 'offset' strip mining the only jarrah forest on Earth
Australia’s environmental laws are meant to protect the irreplaceable, not offer accounting tricks that allow their irrevocable destruction.
The Government is positioning Australia as a global dumping ground for CO₂ and it's taxpayers who carry the risk
The Australian Government is quietly reshaping national climate policy so that Australia can become a global dumping ground for carbon dioxide under the banner of “Sequestration Nation” and keep using and exporting gas.
Communities win again in the Otway Basin, but why do they have to keep fighting?
The recent rejection of the CGG Regia 3D marine seismic blasting survey off Victoria’s south-west coast was a hard-fought victory for coastal communities, marine life and common sense.
Communities beat offshore gas expansion once, the Albanese Government is letting it back in
Locals are gearing up for a new fight against offshore gas expansion, with a Torquay paddle-out opposing acreage releases in the Otway Basin.
Australia’s environment laws are being rewritten, and the government is already backsliding
The draft National Environmental Standards put up for public comment over summer are vague, discretionary, and offset-heavy.
CCS isn't climate action, it's an offset scam
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an offsets zombie the government keeps trying to raise from the dead to prop up the future of fossil fuel projects.
New gas won’t fix a broken system. It’s time to phase out fossil fuels
Climate impacts ranging from fires, floods, heatwaves, extreme cyclones and drought are already reshaping communities, livelihoods, and insurance policies across Australia.
Lawfare in the Forests: How SLAPP suits and legal barriers damage democracy
Environmental groups do not have the capacity, financial resources or institutional incentives to pursue frivolous litigation. When community groups or conservation organisations bring a case, it is because significant environmental or procedural issues are at stake, and because all other channels for accountability and protecting the environment have failed.
