Climate and Energy Project Officer

1 week ago

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Full time
Full time 12-month fixed term contract working with the peak body for the Australian union movement.

  • Exciting role advancing and expanding the ACTU's critical work on climate and energy, including winning landmark Australian climate solutions policy that creates good, union jobs in the renewable economy, ensures a just transition for workers and communities, slashes domestic emissions, and helps accelerate global decarbonisation.
  • Supporting the work of ACTU's affiliated unions and members responding to the climate crisis and driving the energy transition.
  • Assists with developing and advances the ACTU's policy positions on climate and energy to government, agencies, industry, and other relevant bodies.
  • The ACTU is an organisation that respects cultural and social diversity within the workforce and the community. Women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people of colour and from a diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply.
  • The role is based in Melbourne.

Our organisation


The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is the peak union body representing almost 1.8 million workers and their families.

Since our creation in 1927, the ACTU has spearheaded some of the most fundamental workplace struggles in Australia's history.


The ACTU's role as a peak body is to encourage workers to join their union, be a national voice for our movement, and advance and defend workers' rights by co-ordinating union campaigns, representing workers at a range of government and non-government forums and to provide industrial, policy and other support to our affiliates.


The role
Working with the ACTU's Senior Policy Officer on Climate and Energy, this position is responsible for advancing the ACTU's policy priorities on climate and energy, including:

  • Winning landmark climate solutions investments and policy support that supercharge Australia's climate ambition, scale up our renewable economy at the pace dictated by science, and establish Australia as a world leader in a just transition to net zero.
  • Ensuring that the advent of the renewable economy drives the creation of a new generation of union jobs and genuine benefits for Australian households and communities.
  • Reducing emissions domestically and through our exports to ensure Australia makes a fair global contribution to a safer climate.


This role will work closely with the ACTU's affiliated unions to win these priorities, and to support them as they respond to a climate crisis already affecting all workers in all workplaces.

The role will also involve active collaboration and organising with allies across civil society, research, and development of ACTU policy, representing ACTU with external bodies, and project-based work across all ACTU teams.


Key responsibilities

  • Help drive all aspects of winning ACTU's policy priorities on climate and energy that: scale up our renewable economy at the pace dictated by science, create secure union jobs in the new renewable economy, protect workers and communities from the impacts of climate change, and establish Australia as a world leader in the just transition to a net zero economy.
  • Conduct policy research as required, including preparation of submissions briefs and speeches, to advocate ACTU positions to government, agencies, industry and other relevant bodies.
  • Expand the breadth and depth of the union movement's capacity on climate and energy by facilitating the active engagement and consultation of all affiliates impacted by climate change and energy policy.
  • Expand the power and reach of the union movement's capacity on climate and energy by working closely with affiliates to support their organising, engagement, training, and mobilisation of their own members on climate and energy issues that affect them.
  • Represent the ACTU when required at external bodies.
  • Liaise and collaborate with allied organisations to further our shared priorities.

Key Selection Criteria

  • Excellent knowledge of and experience in advocating for policy or legislative change in climate change, energy, or related policy areas.
  • Strong ability to organise individuals and institutions around collective goals, develop a strategy in pursuit of those goals, and win.
  • Very good political instincts, able to identify, anticipate, and solve problems and exercise discretion in a complex policy and political environment.
  • Strong interpersonal skills, able to work effectively with a wide range of unionists, affiliates, and allied organizations.
  • Ability to work with mínimal supervision, and to manage work priorities in a highpressure environment.
  • Good understanding of the ACTU, trade unions and industrial relations more generally.
  • Passionately committed to the social justice values of the ACTU and the union movement.
  • Relevant tertiary qualifications or equivalent skills and experience.
  • Excellent oral and written communication skills.
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