‘Keep moving’: New NSW environment minister ready to embrace challenges of job
By Laura Chung
The old wooden dinner table in the Griffin household provides a healthy arena for political discussion. On one side there’s newly appointed NSW Environment Minister James Griffin, and on the other is his mother, an active Greens member. The table has been in the family for as long as Griffin can remember.
“Some people said to Mum, ‘Do you feel that you failed [because] your son’s a Liberal?’, Griffin says.
“When people come to Mum and say, ‘You’ve got to tell James to do this,’ she says ‘well, do your children do everything that you tell them to?’. ”
James Griffin says he is prepared for the challenges his role as the state’s environment minister will throw up.Credit:Edwina Pickles
However, as election time draws near, the topic of politics is banned from the Griffin household. Despite their political difference, the family is tight-knit. For Griffin, who stepped into the contentious portfolio late last year, his parents have been a key driver in his career as a politician, sparking his sense of civic duty.
As the child of Army parents, the family moved around the country every two years or so. While at first he didn’t think too much of it, as he grew older Griffin felt the loss of his friends and community with each move.
In 1997, when Griffin was 13, his parents finally settled on Sydney’s northern beaches and so ended their nomadic life. There, he and his siblings learned to surf, joined local sports clubs and settled into long-term friendships. In fact, 24 years later, Griffin’s parents still remain in his family home, and he has not left the suburb.
Griffin says he is keen to embrace the challenges of the environment portfolio, working across different areas of government and industry.Credit:Nick Moir
As Griffin eats breakfast – smashed avocado on toast – at the Bella Vista Cafe in Manly, getting mouthfuls in between many questions, his passion for the environment is evident. “You can’t live here and not enjoy the water,” he says.
We were supposed to have lunch and walked around Manly’s spectacular headland, but Sydney’s endless rain had left the paths barely passable and Griffin’s schedule forced back our meeting time. The rest of his day is filled with local events, such as announcing a new 80-kilometre run between Manly and Bondi.
Growing up, Griffin’s parents emphasised community and participation. “There’s always been a sense of service above self – maybe not manifesting by going and joining the defence force,” he says – although it was an idea he had flirted with.
Griffin says his years at St Mary’s Cathedral Catholic College Sydney and Notre Dame University were “pretty normal”, but if you look back over it you can see the seeds of a public life. He was the president of the Student Union, founded a university rugby team – sponsored, of course, by a local pub – and became lifelong friends with some of his lecturers, two of whom even sported blue Liberal shirts during Griffin’s election campaigns.
After eight years in the corporate world, including time as a director at KPMG, the opportunity arose for Griffin to try his hand at politics. In 2017, then-Manly member Mike Baird announced he was stepping down and backed Griffin, then 32, as his replacement for the safe Liberal seat.
“The by-election was pretty crazy, especially stepping into the seat of the former Premier, who was just a giant in the political scene,” Griffin says. “I just called upon all those relationships that I built, having grown up here, and just generated a very community-driven approach to being a local MP and just became that and embodied that.”
“The approach that I took was, I know these people, I know this community, I love it. It’s part of the fabric of who I am.”
In the four years since, Griffin has served as parliamentary secretary for a variety of portfolios, including health and environment.
Sitting in the cafe overlooking the Manly headland on a sunny Sunday morning, Griffin is quietly charismatic. The 37-year-old has the capacity of some politicians to engage deeply in a conversation.
Griffin’s predecessor was his NSW moderate factional ally Matt Kean, who is now treasurer. When he was energy and environment minister Kean managed to see through radical energy and climate reforms, making a role that was potentially poison in Coalition politics to be career-defining.
But when Kean was elevated to treasury he took the energy portfolio with him. He left Griffin with the sole responsibility of looking after the environment – no small task given the latest NSW State of Environment report noted that almost 20 animals and plants had been added to the threatened species list in the past three years, temperatures were 1.1 degrees warmer than they were last century, and the landscape has been ravaged by drought, fire and flood. The role will also see him forced to juggle the competing demands of Nationals MPs.
Nature Conservation Council chief executive officer Chris Gambian says Griffin’s interest in the environment was obvious when the two met in 2019, but the biggest challenge for the new minister will be proving he is an “effective line of defence” for the environment.
Mentor and friend Julie Bishop, former foreign minister, says Griffin is the right person for the job. When they met at a fundraising event in 2018, he was introduced as a “future talent of the Liberal Party”. Since then, they have remained friends.
“He is sufficiently outspoken on important issues,” she says.
Griffin believes the inherent tension between the protection of the environment and the needs of extractive industries and agriculture are manageable. “The starting point on all of that is to respect and believe the science as a driver of policy. I’m actually really excited by the opportunity to I’ve got to reimagine some of the relationships that have been contentious over time,” he says over his smashed avo.
“Central to dealing with those challenging policy areas is not fighting the battles of years gone by,” he says. “It is sitting in the room with different perspectives and getting down to the nuts and bolts of what [peoples’] concern is.”
“It’s a balancing act, but with mature discussion and collaboration. It’s that old political saying – the ‘art of the possible’. I am not afraid of saying come back and check my track record in six months’ time, and you will see the fruits of collaboration.”
Part of the solution, he says, is hearing from those with different points of view; people like his mother – former Greens councillor Cathy Griffin.
“It’s really, really useful to be able to sit around the dinner table and talk to her to understand the view of the Greens or someone who is that invested in the environment from a political perspective to appreciate how they see the world and policy and what it is that the government is or is not doing,” he says.
Griffin remains close to Kean, and other figures of the moderates, including Minister for Infrastructure and Cities Rob Stokes and Health Minister Brad Hazzard – whose electorate is next to Griffin’s. He also remains close with former Premier Gladys Berejiklian – who offers friendship rather than any political advice. Lastly, Griffin says he is friends with legislative council member Taylor Martin. The pair, who bond over their love of surfing, are regularly confused for one another by constituents and politicians alike.
When asked if Griffin’s future lies as the leader of the Liberal party, he laughs. “Ambition is enthusiasm with purpose,” he says. When pressed further, Griffin says he is committed and focused on the current job at hand, but he’s also excited for future opportunities. “I’ll let you [draw] your own conclusions,” he says.
Despite the most recent UN chief climate body’s report showing the world was not on track to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, and that the window to achieving the goal is closing fast, Griffin says he remains an “environmental optimist grounded in reality”.
“I’m not disregarding the challenges we’ve got. But I think we’re at a tipping point where there is agreement that things need to continue changing,” he says.
When he’s not busy with work or his family, including his two young children and “formidable” wife Elissa – who he says is instrumental in keeping him grounded, Griffin finds mental therapy in running with a mens’ group on the weekends. “You just got to keep moving -whether it’s in politics or in life, you just have to keep moving.”
THE BILL PLEASE
Receipt for lunch with James Griffin at at Bella Vista Cafe in Manly.
Bella Visa Cafe Manly, 203/33 North Head Scenic Drive, Open seven days, Weekdays 9am-4pm, Weekends 8am – 5pm. www.bellavistamanly.com.au/contact