Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mackellar for this really important question, because the World Health Organization has described climate change is the greatest threat to public health in the 21st century. They estimate that, between 2030 and 2050, 250,000 people every year will lose their lives as a direct result of a warming planet. The impact in Australia will be profound, in a continent that already pushes us right up against the limits of human tolerance. Heat related deaths will increase. The health effects of more frequent and intense extreme weather events will grow substantially, and vector-borne disease will start to creep southward. The dengue fever exposure zone, for example, is expected to move as far south as Rockhampton by the middle of the century and as far south as northern New South Wales by the end of the century.

We're already seeing this. Separate from the tragic fatalities caused by the Black Saturday bushfires more than a decade ago, that heatwave in Victoria caused 374 heat related deaths, as well as a 700 per cent increase in cardiac call-outs to the Victorian ambulance service. As with so much in this policy area, Australia lags the rest of the world in climate and health, after nine long years of denial and inaction. But that will change under this government. The first and the most important step, obviously, is to take real action on climate change. I congratulate my friend and colleague the Minister for Climate Change and Energy for the bill that he has brought before this House, and I acknowledge the constructive engagement by the member for Mackellar.

On this side, though, we know that good climate policy is good public health policy. Renewable energy is not just good for the climate; it also removes dangerous particulate pollution from the atmosphere and improves public health, as do electric vehicles. I've already commissioned advice from my department about the implementation of the election commitment to which the member for Mackellar refers and I've already had an early discussion with state and territory health ministers about how we can work together, Labor and Liberal alike, to reduce emissions from the health sector as well as improve its capability to deal with the risks and the opportunities that come with climate change.

The legislation before the House today is an important first step in ending nine long years of denial and inaction, but, alongside sectors like manufacturing, transport, energy, agriculture and mining, the health sector also needs a focused plan to deal with climate change, and we are getting on with the job of making that plan.

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