Protecting communities and environments

Maurice Blackburn successfully represented Enough Pokies in Castlemaine (EPIC) at a Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal hearing in which we opposed more poker machines being introduced into the small Victorian country town of Castlemaine. 

As Castlemaine has a delicate local economy of family-run businesses, Council has adopted a policy that no further gaming venues be set up in town (the local Cumberland Hotel already houses about 30 pokie machines).

The Maryborough Highland Society, headquartered 40km away from Castlemaine in a different shire, attempted to convert Castlemaine's historic Railway Goods Shed into a venue with 65 poker machines, tripling the number of pokies in town. This was an attempt to circumvent Council policy by leasing a building on State Government land that sits outside the local planning restrictions.

EPIC is a community organisation comprising over 1,500 people from a town of only 7,000, and includes a broad cross-section of the Castlemaine community - with local businesses, artists, the local psychiatrist, problem gamblers and their family and friends all involved.

VCAT handed down its orders on 14 February 2013. This was a significant win for EPIC and community groups throughout Australia.

In 2021, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers represented Greenpeace in defending a claim for copyright and trade mark infringement made against it by energy and telecommunications company AGL. 

Greenpeace used AGL’s logo in its cheeky brand-jamming campaign targeted at AGL’s poor environmental practices, including drawing attention to its status as Australia’s worst domestic climate polluter and “greenwashing” conduct. Within 2 days of the campaign launch AGL sued Greenpeace in the Federal Court seeking declarations that Greenpeace had infringed its copyright and trade marks in the logo, injunctions to restrain its continued use by Greenpeace and damages be paid by Greenpeace in relation to the infringements. 

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers’ legal defence of Greenpeace relied on a freedom of expression safeguard known as “fair dealing” that permits the use of allows charities such as Greenpeace to use copyrighted works in campaigns where that use is fair and for the purpose of review, criticism, satire or parody. In June 2021, the Court determined that some of Greenpeace’s use of the logo was mostly fair and humorous and that in relation to most of its campaign, Greenpeace could rely on the defence of fair dealing for the purpose of parody or satire. This allowed Greenpeace to continue with its campaign. 

Rebecca Gilsenen, a Principal Lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who represented Greenpeace says that “It was a pleasure to defend Greenpeace against AGL’s heavy handed attempts to shut down their important campaign. The case also helped to clarify the parody and satire defence in Copyright law”.  

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers is concerned about climate change and environmental destruction in Australia and around the world. In addition to efforts by governments to address these issues in the international and criminal legal spaces, we are watching with interest as human rights and civil legal principles are increasingly used by individuals and groups to take action in the Courts to protect the environment. This includes for example consumer law cases about “greenwashing”, corporate disclosure cases about environmental harm, tortious cases alleging a breach of duty of care in connection with the climate crisis, and administrative law cases challenging planning decisions and environmental permits. 

You can read an article we have written about the global campaign to include “Ecocide” as an international crime falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (the ICC) here.