In this revised chapter, the authors reiterate the fundamental importance of children’s learning experiences in natural environments. However, they challenge educators to re-examine their worldviews and pedagogies around such experiences. Relationships between humans and nature are problematic – especially at this critical juncture in Earth’s history. The authors make a compelling case for Australian immersive nature play programs (INPPs) as offering opportunities to explore a nature–sustainability nexus. They discuss three stories from the field to illustrate their arguments. Further, they propose that authentically embedding First Nations peoples’ worldviews into INPPs presents additional richness for teaching and learning in nature programs.

On one level, this chapter invites readers on an engaging cultural and geographic journey across the Americas, but more deeply it challenges our ways of facilitating early childhood teacher education for sustainability. There is no one right way to motivate teachers – both pre-service and in-service – to take on the challenges of sustainability; however, this chapter offers a range of possibilities. Harwood examines a Canadian pre-service ECEfS course of study with Indigenous and colonial perspectives interwoven; Carr focuses on the in-service experiences of educators participating in a centre transformation towards ECEfS at Arlitt Child Development Center; while Bascopé documents an in-service exploration of the role of Indigenous Chilean culture in ECEfS with teachers. Diversity and richness characterise this chapter.

In this chapter, the authors reiterate matters they consider essential for the future development of ECEfS. There are three key essentials proposed in this final chapter – communities of practice; teacher education; and curriculum policy review – to further progress and deepen systems thinking across the early childhood education field for sustainable futures.

In this chapter, these four co-authors emphasise the importance of sustainability for the future of people and planet, given that the case for all human and non-human inhabitants has never been clearer. Through an account of Mia’s doctoral study, they challenge readers to provide young children with meaningful opportunities to participate in conversations about the Earth’s future. More importantly, they argue for children’s concerns to be heard and their ideas acted upon. To this end, the chapter offers research-based strategies for early years educators, especially in the first years of schooling, given that the research was conducted with children aged from 6 to 8 years. They developed the 4C Pedagogical Framework for transformational early childhood education for sustainability as a valuable tool for this purpose.

This chapter expands reader horizons across four diverse Asian cultures – India, Japan, China and Singapore – and challenges predominant Western perspectives about sustainability. The concept of ‘glocal’ resonates in these Asian countries as a way to respond to both local and global environmental needs. These cultural contexts and the required border-crossings significantly enrich and deepen understandings for all about what it means to live sustainability.

In this chapter, the authors focus on connections between human health, environmental quality, climate change and sustainability. Taking planetary health and sustainable development perspectives, the authors track the rapidly changing ecology of childhood in the twenty-first century. They consider opportunities for early childhood educators to integrate health and environmental learning through positive educational responses that engage children in actions for change. The authors note that ‘whole-school approaches’ best support education for sustainability, health and fairness, as well as promoting healthy cognitive, physical and emotional development. They welcome stronger partnerships between health professionals and early childhood educators to create ‘green and healthy’ learning environments. In essence, the authors reiterate that living sustainably is not only good for the planet, but also vital for the health and wellbeing of children, families and communities.

In this chapter, the authors focus on working collaboratively with the wider community to engage in ECEfS values. They do this through discussing a story from the field from Korea, where children actively engaged in a project to protect local wildlife, and a collaboration in Australia between an early childhood university academic with an interest in participatory and arts-based approaches that support listening to children, and an environmental educator with the local council. Each project demonstrates the value of shared goals, openness and trust between partners. The Australian project was based at the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, a public environmental visitor centre situated in a popular rainforest reserve on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, and comprised partnerships between environmental education centre staff and volunteers, student teachers, early childhood practitioners and children aged from 3 to 10 years. The ripple effects of these projects led to powerful ways of thinking and doing ECEfS that enriched child, family and community connections, and strengthened individual, collective and organisational commitments to sustainability.

In this chapter, the authors reiterate how, in the face of the unprecedented impacts of climate change, early childhood leaders, children and their communities have been able to work towards living sustainably. This chapter presents positive actions undertaken by educational leaders implementing ECEfS, highlighting how to live more sustainably within early childhood education communities. Six case studies are presented that illustrate the power of transformative leadership to engage in sustainable practices.

This chapter examines section 117 of the Australian Constitution, which prohibits States from discriminating against residents in other States. Section 117 is a peculiar provision. It is not a limitation on power that invalidates offending laws: it confers an immunity on some individuals (namely, those who are Australians resident in a State, but not those who are non-Australians resident in a State or anyone resident in a territory or overseas) from offending laws. The basic methodology for determining whether section 117 applies involves a comparison of the position of the plaintiff in two scenarios. The first scenario is the actual situation of a plaintiff. The second scenario is the hypothetical situation of the plaintiff being a resident in the State alleged to have discriminated against the plaintiff. If the treatment of the plaintiff in both scenarios by the State would be the same, then there is no discrimination and section 117 does not apply. If the treatment of the plaintiff in both scenarios would be different, then there is discrimination on the ground of State residency and section 117 renders the plaintiff immune from the offending law.

This chapter examines the external affairs power. Section 51(xxix) of the Australian Constitution grants the Commonwealth Parliament power to make laws with respect to ‘external affairs’. The external affairs power has three key components and is both a subject-matter and purpose power. The external affairs power empowers the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to the subject-matters of: (1) international relations; and (2) matters geographically external to Australia. The external affairs power also empowers the Commonwealth to make laws for the purpose of: (3) implementing Australia’s international legal obligations. The power has enabled the Commonwealth to regulate matters as diverse as aviation safety standards, racial discrimination and terrorist activity.

This chapter presents an introduction to Australian constitutional law. This chapter begins by examining the various forms a Constitution can take and the purposes a Constitution may serve. This chapter also examines the process by which Australia achieved constitutional independence from the United Kingdom. This chapter considers the more conceptual questions of why the Australian Constitution was binding in 1901 and why the Australian Constitution is binding today. This chapter also considers a number of key principles underlying the Australian Constitution: the rule of law, federalism, responsible government, and parliamentary supremacy. This chapter concludes with a consideration of the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian constitutionalism.

This chapter examines an implied restriction on power: the implied freedom of political communication. The Australian Constitution establishes a system of representative and responsible government. The High Court has explained that because freedom of political communication is necessary for such a system to function it follows that laws that impermissibly burden communication about political matters must be invalid. The High Court has developed a three-stage framework of analysis for assessing the validity of laws challenged for breach of the implied freedom. That framework requires examining whether the law has the effect of burdening political communication, whether the purpose of the law is legitimate, and whether the operation of the law is proportionate. The High Court has been clear that the implied freedom is a restriction on power, rather than an individual right, and that it protects only communication about governmental and political matters rather than freedom of speech more broadly.

This chapter examines the scope of the Commonwealth’s power to impose taxation.The tax power enables the Commonwealth to raise revenue, as well as to indirectly regulate behaviour by using taxes to encourage or discourage behaviour. In general terms, a tax is a compulsory exaction of money for public purposes enforceable by law and which is not a fine or pecuniary penalty, a fee for service or a fee for a licence. The Constitution imposes special rules about the procedure for enacting federal tax laws, which are not justiciable, and special rules about the content of federal tax laws, which are justiciable. The Constitution also makes the power to impose duties of customs and excise an exclusively federal power, thereby limiting the power of the States to impose taxes on goods.

This chapter examines the process of constitutional alteration and the scope of the race power in section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution. The race power was altered by referendum in 1967 and provides a useful case study in the way in which alteration of a constitutional provision affects its meaning. Section 128 provides that the Constitution may be altered only by a law approved by the electors voting in a referendum. The electors’ approval must be expressed by way of double majority: any constitutional alteration must be approved by a majority of electors nationwide and by a majority of electors in a majority of States. In 1967, such a double majority was achieved to alter the scope of the race power by extending its scope to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were originally excluded from the scope of the race power. Contemporary controversy has focused on whether the race power is limited to laws beneficial to the people of any race or whether the race power extends to laws that are detrimental to the people of any race.

This chapter examines how Chapter III of the Australian Constitution protects the institutional integrity of Chapter III courts. This doctrine is often called the Kable doctrine after the name of the case in which it was first established. The doctrine holds that it is beyond power for any Parliament to impair the institutional integrity of a Chapter III court by depriving it of any of the defining characteristics of a court.