Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery. Would the minister inform the House of the impacts of climate change on rural and regional health and why action is needed?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. Unlike our friends opposite, who on this subject are led by a cabal of sceptics and fakers, the member for Leichhardt along with his colleagues on this side of the House understand only too well the impact of climate change on their communities.

It is worth while reflecting for just a moment on the likely health effects of climate change. They are likely to include deaths, illness and injury from heatwaves affecting, in particular, children, the elderly, people from lower socioeconomic groups, people will pre-existing medical conditions, people employed outdoors, such as construction workers; and from more frequent and intense extreme weather events, including bushfires, floods, storms, coastal storm surges and cyclones. And these may of course also trigger mental health problems. I make the observation, despite the protests from those opposite, that during the course of the debate earlier this week on the issue of rural adjustment members of the National Party sitting in this place spoke about the importance of looking after the mental health of their constituents. They said this because of the duress they were under as a result of climatic events.

Unlike those opposite, we understand that we need to do something about climate change. I know that the member for Leichhardt, for example, is acutely aware of the impacts of climate change on his electorate. In his electorate he can expect the spread of vector-borne, water-borne and food-borne disease. He can expect dengue fever to spread, possibly getting down as far as Rockhampton by 2050. He can expect increasingly extreme storm events. He can expect that the Great Barrier Reef is likely to experience significant annual bleaching by 2030.

The member for Mallee—someone who, I understand, thinks carefully about these issues—can expect that in his electorate the average annual number of day over 35 degrees will increase significantly. In Victoria the decline in annual rainfall and increased evaporation is likely to reduce run-off into rivers by up to 45 per cent in 29 catchments by 2030. The member for Kalgoorlie can expect that by 2030 the annual average number of days in Broome over 35 degrees will grow from the current 54 days to between 64 and 119 days.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman is warned.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It just demonstrates the truth of what I said at the outset: they are led by a cabal of sceptics and fakers. We are about to start the show season in the Northern Territory. You can understand what we are about to see. We could have this cabal of fakers standing around the parade ring being led by the Leader of the Opposition followed by his conga line—these people who are sceptics who are not prepared to act on the issue of climate change and are stalling the government’s CPRS legislation in the Senate. This is a demonstration yet again not only of their lack of understanding of their own communities, or their understanding of the regional impacts of climate change or their care for their communities but of how unfit they are to govern.