Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business (Senator Cash) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to climate change.

I rise to take note of Minister Cash's response, representing the Minister for Health, to my question about climate change and a health emergency. Quite plainly, the government doesn't think that climate change presents a health emergency. She refused to answer that question. She articulated a few of the initiatives the government's taking, but it's curious that those did not include ensuring that climate change is part of our long-term national priority health plan. Is it in that? No, it's not, so clearly it's not a priority for this government—well, let's face it: climate change is not a priority for this government—but it's certainly not a priority in terms of looking at the impact it is having on people's health in this country or at what sort of systems response we need to properly address the impact of climate change on our health system and on people's health.

Let's be clear: climate change is a health emergency. It requires urgent action by government. Literally, people's lives are at stake. If we do not address climate change as a health emergency, people's lives will be lost. We know that. Climate change is already having an impact on people's health and people's lives. As I articulated when I asked the question, 450 people last year died or had their lives affected through direct impacts or through air pollution, and thousands of others have had their lives impacted through the pollution and the damage caused by climate change already.

I would like to point out that First Nations people will be particularly affected by climate change as a health emergency. They already have poorer outcomes in their health. We already know the gap in life expectancy isn't being closed. We know that First Nations people are living in overcrowded housing. We already know that many have less funding and resources available to respond to the climate emergency as it affects their health. Many live in rural and remote areas and, in fact, are already feeling the impacts of climate change on their health: they are already being required, for example, to move in response to it.

Just recently we've had three important reports released that are addressing these issues. Just today we had the Grattan Institute's report Climate change and health: preparing for the next disaster, where they make seven recommendations and clearly point out that we can't regard the issue of climate change in terms of health as an optional extra; it has to be core business. Yet we know it's not included in the National Preventive Health Strategy, for example. You would have thought it would be one of those key areas that government would think should be there. It's not included in Australia's Long Term National Health Plan, and research is not being funded at a high enough level.

Then we've got The 2020 special report of the MJA-Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: lessons learnt from Australia's "Black Summer". This report looks at the health of the Australian public and sees it as uniquely at risk from the effects of climate change. It demonstrates the need for the federal government to adopt a national strategy on climate change in relation to health and wellbeing. The report is clearly a call to action and also articulates the fact that many of our health experts are saying climate change is a health emergency.

Then we have the Centre for Future Work report on climate change producing dangerous heat stress in workplaces. This report articulates the impacts of climate change on people's health in the workplace. It says:

So here we have, just recently, really clear evidence that the climate crisis is a health emergency, but the government once again are missing in action when it comes to addressing climate change and, of course, they're refusing to accelerate our move to net zero emissions. Quite clearly we need this government to commit to net zero emissions by, at latest, 2035. We are failing to take this issue seriously, and it will directly lead to lives being lost. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.