Gerry Bates


Gerard Maxwell Bates is an Australian environmental lawyer and academic, and former politician.

Early life and education

Bates was born in Lancashire, England in 1950. He studied at the University of Birmingham where he qualified for a Bachelor of Laws and a PhD.
Bates went on to become a tutor at the University of Birmingham and a senior lecturer at Birmingham Polytechnic.
He later emigrated to Australia, and was a lecturer in environmental law at the University of Tasmania until Bob Brown convinced him to run for parliament as a Green Independent in 1986 Tasmanian state election.

Political career

In 1986, he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Franklin as an Independent Green. At the 1989 election, three other Greens were elected in addition to Brown and Bates. The Greens held the balance of power, and agreed to give support to the Labor Party to form a minority government when they signed the Labor–Green Accord. In 1992, the five Independent Greens in the House formed the Tasmanian Greens.
Bates resigned from the House of Assembly on 4 May 1995 to contest Queenborough in the Legislative Council, but was unsuccessful.

Academic career

Bates is an adjunct professor at the Sydney Law School, the law faculty of the University of Sydney. He is also an adjunct professor at the Australian Centre for Environmental Law, part of the Australian National University.
Bates has been a member of the Board of the Environment Protection Authority of NSW since 1996, a member of the State of the Environment Advisory Council since 2004, and a Director of Kimbriki Environmental Enterprises, a regional waste recovery centre and landfill on Sydney's Northern Beaches, since 2006.
Bates is author of Environmental Law in Australia, Corporate Liability for Pollution" and "Pollution Law in Australia. He is also Editor of the Environment and Planning Law Journal.
Bates received a special award from the National Environmental Law Association in 1994 for Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Law.