Ask Sue Higginson to describe herself and the answer is both simple and profound: "I am a worker," she says. "I lost the off-switch years ago."
The nature of her work bears that out, with "nature" the operative word. For more than 30 years, Sue's belief in environmental and social justice has played out on several fronts –
- physically: as the ultimate activist locking herself to bulldozers, challenging mining companies, and leading campaigns
- legally: as a public interest and environmental lawyer
- personally: as a dryland rice farmer exercising biodiversity management and conservation on the Richmond Floodplain
- politically: in her latest role as The Honourable Sue Higginson MP, Greens NSW representative in the NSW Legislative Council.
At every level, Sue's resolve is unshakeable. So too her conviction about the impact of her time at Southern Cross University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (1st Class Honours) in 2004 and received the University Medal.
"I was encouraged from the outset, learning much more than merely the processes and protocols of the law," says Sue.
"I also learned the law in the context of aspiration, encapsulated in two questions I was asked early on in my degree, and which have stayed with me: What do I want to achieve and why? What can I do to produce real and just outcomes that serve others?"
Sue's spirit of service started early.
Born in England, she was a child when her family emigrated to Australia in the 1980s and in her late teens when she moved to the NSW Northern Rivers: "The environment here spoke loud to me. I felt at home the moment I arrived."
Sue's environmental activism also sparked during the 1980s as she sat glued to news coverage of the Franklin River anti-dam campaign in Tasmania.
"They were true warriors," she says. "Here was a small group of people willing to put their lives on the line for a cause that could not speak for itself. That was cathartic for me."
A few years later it was Sue being hailed as a warrior, thanks to her frontline fight to protect Old Growth Forest in Northern NSW.
"Those forests are unique in the world, and I was part of an incredible movement of people working to protect them in the face of political failure that would have allowed them to be logged out of existence."
Opponents tried to dismiss her as a young radical. Sue countered, observing that much more radical was the wanton environmental destruction fuelled by both a lack of scientific understanding and political will to prevent it.
When a friend, lawyer and Southern Cross University academic suggested to Sue she should take her advocacy to law school, she laughed. But the idea took hold.
"The School of Law and Justice, as it was then, really resonated with me," says Sue. "My degree was not simply about law; it was about the philosophy of law and justice and I learnt these can be very different things at any point in time.
"I was supported to carve my own path through my degree and was able to give strong focus to the intersectionality of law and the environment.
"I got to turn part of my Corporations Law study into a publication in the Companies and Securities Law Journal. My contribution was on shareholder activism using the anti-uranium mining protest at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory as a case study.
"This was something I could not have done without the support and encouragement I received from my lecturers. That deep dive into corporations law also gave me skills and knowledge I later used in major litigation cases where I was taking on giant corporations.
"The upshot of it all was that, when I graduated, I was fully ready to apply my degree to the next phase of my working life in environmental justice."
In 2006, Sue was the ideal choice to become a Solicitor at the Environmental Defenders Office, Australia's leading environmental law centre. Rising to Principal Solicitor then CEO, she spent more than a decade assisting communities across NSW to protect the environment through the law.
In 2022, she entered the Legislative Council for the NSW Greens, replacing the now Federal Senator David Shoebridge. Those first days and weeks in Sydney were difficult, though not for any political naivete or nervousness.
"All this took place during the floods of early 2022," she says. "I wanted to stay and support the recovery effort, until it was made clear to me how important it was for the region to have a voice in the Parliament at such a terrible time."
As a politician, Sue describes the Greens as the circuit-breaker between the two major parties, "holding both to account and putting forward a vision for a fairer, more hopeful future."
She is also thankful for what she describes as the poignant connection between all the work leading up to this latest chapter in her life of service.
Her gratitude for Southern Cross University is just as strong.
"I cannot believe I laughed when it was first suggested I do a law degree," says Sue. "I am so glad I did not dismiss the notion because it has meant so much.
"Southern Cross University represents an enormous part of my journey – professionally, personally and philosophically."
