Most people don't know what they want to do with their life when they are young, while others have a passion that turns into a career. This is what happened to Sue Higginson. Sue has been passionate about the environment even as a teenager. This has led her to become an environmental activist, a lawyer and now a member of the Legislative Council in the NSW Upper House. Lilly Harmon managed to get some time with Sue to hear her life story.

I was born in the south of England in the beautiful region of Cornwall. When I was two, we moved north near Manchester to Preston, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

My Dad was a manufacturing guru who subscribed to Thatcher’s Britain. He was from extreme poverty and was determined to work his way out of it. His work and politics were central to our lives.

After my birth, my beautiful Mum suffered severe post-natal depression and suffered dramatically for most of the first part of my life. It was a difficult time because mental illness was taboo in those days; it was interpreted as some form of weak infliction.

My Dad's ambition brought us to Australia in the early 80s, when I was about 10.

We left everything behind and arrived in Melbourne to start our new life. For me it was like being reborn, I think it was for Mum too. The minute I arrived here on this land, I was impacted by how beautiful, big and wild it is.

In England, my Dad used to love taking me and my siblings hiking and camping in the countryside, so I had a relationship of sorts with nature. When we arrived in Victoria, one of the first places he took our family was the Dandenongs.

I will never forget walking into this place called Sherbrooke Forest. It was just this absolutely unbelievable tall temperate forest environment. It was something I had never ever experienced in my whole life. It was wild, ancient, alive and full of life. I suppose at ten, those kinds of experiences are very long-lasting and make a massive impression on your soul. 

I don't think I realised at the time that nature and being an environmental activist would be such an integral aspect of my life, and it wasn't a conscious thing at the time, but looking back, it definitely was formative. I realised this later in life when I had to start questioning why I was so passionate about the environment and why I found myself locking myself onto bulldozers ten years later, trying to stop the logging of forests. When I found myself locking onto bulldozers ten years later trying to stop the logging of forests. When I'm trying to really reconcile how that was happening and what was driving me, I look back and reminisce on my experiences in nature; it must have meant something.

I remember that first time I walked into that forest, I couldn't believe the utter size and the age of these giant trees. I saw crimson rosellas as well and shining bright rubies flying through the forest. I think it probably took me straight back to my early childhood, and those few happy magic places of adventure and wonder that I held on to, like reading Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree and The Enchanted Forest. I just couldn't believe that forests and land like this was real and it was here, in my new world!

I did my high schooling in Melbourne, and I was always quite political. I was part of my school's first Student Representative Council. I was always a news watcher and my Dad was very engaged in politics and the economy, part of my engagement was a way of relating to him.

I formed my politics in opposition to his, which was very hard. I think it is so much easier to follow your parent's politics, but I just couldn't.

As a young kid in England, my Dad agreed with Margaret Thatcher's vision for Britain; he was fundamentally a capitalist. I couldn't see how anyone could hold the view that the only reason a person is poor is because they don't work hard enough. I could only see Margaret Thatcher as the Iron Lady she became known as, and a mean person who didn't have much compassion for the disadvantaged or sick.

In 1983, I remember watching the news and seeing the reporting of the Franklin Dam protest in Tasmania. I grabbed me physically and emotionally. I saw these incredible people putting their lives on the line for the protection of our natural environment. I now look back and think, wow, that was Bob Brown, and essentially the beginning of the Greens. I can't now look back and say, I remember seeing Bob Brown on the TV, I just saw people.

I saw a group of deeply passionate, creative, dedicated people who were willing to give up everything to protect something so valuable and important. The arguments, the logic, and the rationale that was being put forward as to why it's so important to protect these incredibly important wild places rather than damage them irreversibly really shaped me. I must have been about 14 at high school, in about year 9. I looked at these people; I saw leaders, carers, and evidenced-based operators as part of a connected movement of real-life heroes.

I followed the High Court case around the Franklin where Tasmania took the Commonwealth to court for passing laws that stopped the building of the Franklin Dam. Bob Hawke has made a big deal about protecting the environment. It was an exciting time in Australian political and legal history. It was environmental justice in action and there was a movement of standing up for the country, for our precious environment and for biodiversity.

One day at school, I mentioned the Franklin dam to our politics teacher, he very coyly said to me during the lunch break that during the school holidays, he was at the Franklin blockade. A few of my mates and I wanted to know all about it, what he had seen and what it was like.

He talked about how exciting, meaningful and important that work was. It made me realise that it really is just a group of amazing people and their determination that can protect the environment and change history. Even then, I don't think that it solidified in me that I was going to be an environmentalist; I was young and caught up in many things.

After I left school, I travelled to India and Nepal, where I saw some serious environmental degradation. I was questioning many things; I saw so much injustice, unfairness and environmental destruction. I saw what can happen when you don't have a strong rule of law and an environmental protection priority. I'd come from England, which, as beautiful as it is, it's a very modified landscape without many wild spaces. I felt a longing to return to Australia to live somewhere warm and do something meaningful.

I found myself here in the Northern Rivers, joining the campaign with friends and the North East Forest Alliance to protect the last remaining Old Growth Forests in NSW. I found myself on the forest blockade frontlines at Chaelundi.

It was the most incredible experience I could have had. I met incredible people, so many clever scientists and ecologists. I learnt so much about our forests and their functions. I realised that all the people I was working with and connecting with were people who could see environmental injustice and were prepared to fight it.

I realised that a lot of the people that I was connecting with were also people who were here at Terania Creek in 1979, at Protester Falls. The people who stood up against the State and the Forestry Commission and stopped the logging of our precious unique rainforests.

Some had gone to the Franklin blockade. It was a serious sense of deep connection and community with people who came from all walks of life, yet had this common thread pulling them together, a cause bigger than us all.

Our campaign was part of a bigger picture to get the Government to pass better environmental protection laws. We are such an exploitative culture, so much of our so-called productivity is based on environmental exploitation, harm and destruction. My campaigning was very much engaged in the frontline, blockading, so the frontline civil resistance movement, but also legal cases, the law around the environment, and the politics and the policy of environment. 

I suppose, we were all people ahead of our time, trying to buy time until others wake up to the understanding of how important the health of our environment is to all of us. 

Around that time, when I was finishing my time on the forest frontlines, I was bringing up my family. I had my first baby when I was around 20, so I knew I had to settle down and stop blockading and locking onto bulldozers. I was living on the beautiful Mt Nardi, behind Nimbin, and one of my friends and wonderful colleagues, now former Magistrate and Dean of the SCU Law School, David Heilpern, said to me that I should go and study law at Southern Cross. 

I was very hesitant at first. I barely finished my HSC. I was quite a distracted student, as I was so focused on the world and other issues. I eventually enrolled in the law degree at Southern Cross University as a mature-aged student, and after completing my first semester, I just loved it and fell in love with the law; it all just made sense. It felt like it was a language that I knew. It had concepts about justice and fairness, which I was passionate about. I remember, at the beginning of my law degree, having a vision of opening an Environmental Defenders Office in the Northern Rivers. EDO is a community legal centre which specialises in public interest and environmental law. 

The EDO was based in Sydney, and I watched it at the forefront of environmental law in New South Wales, winning cases and protecting the environment by working with communities. I just thought, ‘Gosh, wouldn't that be great? That's what I'd like to do!’ I got my law degree with first-class honours, and I also won the University Medal. I was an absolute nerd for the law; I couldn't stop. I just loved it! 

I had my second child halfway through my law degree, and then I worked as a lawyer in Lismore with a wonderful solicitor. I was also lecturing Environmental Law at Southern Cross University at the time as well.

After some time, the then CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office called me and said, “Hi, Sue, we've never met, but we're thinking of opening a branch office in the Northern Rivers, and we'd love your advice and perhaps even for you to be a part of it.” I was just so taken about and thought, “How did that happen? Who would have thought?” Then he called me back and I gave him advice about how he could set up that Legal Centre that would work. He called me back and informed me they were advertising for a solicitor and thought I should apply. I knew it was my destiny. I applied and, of course, I got the job. 

Two of us solicitors opened the branch office of the Environmental Defenders Office in Lismore servicing the Northern Rivers region. We were co-located with the Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre. My colleague Jessica and I pioneered this amazing Legal Centre that specialised in public interest, environmental law, and it was just fantastic.

I was there from about 2006 till 2012. We worked with heaps of people in the community around the whole region. We helped farmers, environmentalists and communities to use our environmental laws to protect their local environment. We were around when the Bentley CSG battle was on. We provided a lot of assistance around that. I took on lots of court cases and provided so much legal advice. We also offered lots of education for farmers and rural landholders to help them better understand environmental laws and help them comply with their environmental legal obligations. It was an unbelievably positive experience. 

We were so successful at the EDO and not just the Northern Rivers branch, that I worked very closely with the NSW head office. We were taking on some big coal companies, such as Rio Tinto and BHP in court, challenging their coal approvals in the Hunter Valley because of the impact they were having on the climate. We were the victims of our own success because we won, and we were right.

The mining companies fought back really hard, and politically, they tried to stop us from doing what we were doing. That's where I learnt how corruptible our democracy really is and how much influence the fossil fuel industry has over our democracy. Even though the court said we were right, the mining companies couldn't hack it. They went to the Government of the day and told them that they had to get rid of the EDO. They were saying you can't have a Legal Centre run by a bunch of environmental lawyers that challenge them in courts and stop them from mining. It was very controversial because politics and law are meant to be separate, but they were attacking our funding, and the EDO took a hit.

Many in our organisation became insecure about their job status, causing a few to leave. Our CEO said to me, maybe you could come to Sydney and take over the EDO as the principal solicitor. I knew I had to do it because I was good at my job, but I also understood the politics of what was happening, and we just needed some of that campaign and fight back spirit. 

I made the decision to do it. However, it meant I had to work in Sydney, away from my family. My partner and I had six kids between us, some still young and living in South Gundurimba out on our farm.

My partner is a farmer, among many other things. He was so supportive of me taking this job, understanding that it was really what I had to do. I knew I couldn’t bring my family with me cause it was unrealistic having to relocate school-aged kids to Sydney and having to give up the farm. From 2012 until 2017, I was going to Sydney every week to work and coming home on weekends when I could to spend my time back at the farm with the family. 

We saved and turned the EDO around, but unfortunately, we had to close the Northern Rivers branch office, which was really sad and a lot of people in the community wished it was still here. It was a great institution and a great place for the community to come, get educated about the law and go out and make a difference.

In 2017, I felt like it was time for me to move on from EDO. I'd been at this fantastic institution for over a decade, and in that time it had very much become me, and I had very much become it. It was a heavy load, and I loved it. Nearly every week, I was in the newspapers and on the TV talking about what we were doing across the State. I was taking on the big end of the town, and we were winning most of them. I knew for me it was time to move on, it was someone else’s turn. 

I opened my own small boutique law firm here in Lismore, where I worked from home and just took on cases I wanted to. I also took on a load of cases representing environmental protesters from around the state and in Queensland. I represented lots of Adani protesters, who were all some of the most wonderful clients imaginable. Nurses, teachers, doctors and many amazing members of the community from all across Australia.

I took that time as well to begin working more at our farm out here in South Gundurimba and investing in our farming business. We predominantly grow dryland rice, and that's because I convinced my hubby that we should be activist farmers. He is amazingly innovative and hardworking, and I knew we could make it work. We wanted to prove that you can grow rice without having to steal so much water from the rivers, as they do down in the Riverina. Irrigation paddy rice is a terrible contributor to climate change, causing intense methane emissions. The world has been put on notice that we're going to have to change the way we grow rice, and I wanted to be part of that. 

I eventually decided that I would run as the Greens candidate in the 2019 State Election. I'm not completely sure why I ultimately made that decision; I just got very excited about the prospect of change for Lismore with the then Nationals member Thomas George retiring from the seat. I thought it was a great opportunity to try and swing Lismore in a more progressive direction for the first time in 54 years. I ran a very positive community-powered campaign on the grounds of environmental protection, cleaning the river, rebuilding the agriculture sector and dealing with climate change. I wanted Lismore to be a part of that change. But I also campaigned for more innovative transport, housing and more public health and education services for our region.

I first got involved in the Greens back in 1996 when I was involved in forest politics. I actually ran in the 1996 election for the seat of Page. I did that to elevate the campaign around forest protection. It wasn't the politics at the time I was interested in, but it was the issue I wanted to draw attention to. 

When I was at the EDO, I was not engaged in party politics. I supported the Greens locally because the Greens resonate with my deep concern for the environment and commitment to justice. A number of people contacted me and asked me to run for Lismore, and I did. We ran with a goal to get elected, but to support Labor because we knew Lismore needed change, and it was time to have a progressive woman representing us. I loved every minute of the campaign. We worked super hard, and we ran a positive exciting campaign. 

After the state election, I was getting back on with my law work having a ball here at the farm. That’s when a casual vacancy in the New South Wales Upper House came up, and Bob Brown and a couple of other Greens colleagues tapped me on the shoulder and encouraged me to run. Initially, I made the decision not to do it because I was so satisfied with what I was doing in my small legal practice and here at the farm. However, it just kept twinging in my mind. I realised that all of the work I had done, with all of the wonderful people across the State for so many years, was not going to end. I had to take all of their work, passion and the knowledge they had instilled in me to the Upper House and keep fighting for justice. 

I ran for the casual vacancy and was very privileged and humbled that the Greens elected me as their representative in the New South Wales Upper House. I've been there for two years now as of next month and I am absolutely loving it. My current portfolios are environment, justice planning, agriculture and First Nations justice. I am also very active in the Parliament's committees. I am the Chair of Portfolio Committee 7 Planning and Environment, and I am a member of a number of others. All of my work as a lawyer, a farmer and an activist has really helped me to be able to slip into my role in the upper house. I am a worker, I find it hard to stop. I have lost the off switch, and I think that's ok for now.  

Right now, I'm very rarely in the same place for too long. In sitting weeks, I’m obviously down at Macquarie Street in Parliament for the week. I travel the State a lot, but I also love working from the farm. I love gardening, and our horses and we have koalas. I am passionate about protecting koalas and growing their habitat. We have planted 10,000 trees, and we have more to plant. I have my eighth grandchild on the way right now which I’m very excited and grateful for. 

I love where I am right now, in the Upper House with the Greens and balancing that with the farm back at home. The reality is we are far from where we need to be. We are in a climate, an extinction and a cost of living crisis, and our young people are really struggling, but the politics is not responding. We are still logging our precious public native forests for goodness sake. I will keep fighting for environmental and social justice with all of my might.