Introduction by Croakey: In the lead up to the federal election, some health organisations and leaders have been working hard to increase community engagement and awareness of critical climate health concerns.
However, the silence from the major parties remains deafening, according to Doctors for the Environment Australia board chair Professor Nick Talley and executive director Dr Kate Wylie.
Nick Talley and Kate Wylie write:
The opening sentence of the National Health and Climate Strategy (NHCS), describes climate change as “the greatest threat to public health this century”.
Despite the urgency of this message, neither Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers in his budget, nor Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in his budget reply, address how the health sector will respond to this challenge and keep our communities safe.
Neither had anything at all on building health sector resilience to climate change, nothing to upskill our workforce and nothing to realise the “Health in All Policies” objective of the NHCS.
There is an abundant body of health research demonstrating the increased disease burden of climate change from the impact of heat and heat waves, extreme weather events, changing patterns of infectious disease and mental illness, as well as the increase in health service demand and loss of infrastructure that climate induced disasters are causing.
For example, extreme weather accounts for over 900 hospitalisations per year and 36,000 Australians are estimated to have lost their lives from heat-related illness between 2006 and 2017.
To date there has been precious little budgetary allocation for climate and health. There was $5 million designated for research in March 2024, $3.7 million over three years in the October 2022 budget, and there is a small unit nestled in the interim Australian Centre for Disease Control.
But this pales to insignificance when you consider that the overall budget for the Department of Health and Aged care is over $122 billion for the 2025-26 financial year.
You would think that within that vast sum, there would be allocation for “the greatest threat to public health this century”.
However, both Labor and the Coalition have policies that will make the problem worse by further entrenching our dependency on coal, oil and gas – the primary cause of this immense health threat.
The Government’s fuel tax credit scheme, which encourages fossil fuel pollution, will cost the Australian taxpayer $10.8 billion this financial year, whilst the petroleum resource rent tax is projected to bring in a decreasing amount of money over the next few years (from $1.95 billion in 2024 to 1.45 billion in 2028). This means Australia receives even less income from our gas exports, while we remain the third largest exporters of coal and gas in the world.
However, Labor’s continued push to transition to renewable energy and achieve the 82 percent by 2030 renewable energy target does at least address Australia’s domestic emissions and shows that Labor recognises that climate change is a serious problem that needs urgent attention, even while they expand gas exports.
In his budget reply, Peter Dutton outlined plans to take 25 cents/litre off the fuel excise (for 12 months), saving us money at the bowser in the short term, and thereby encouraging Australians to continue to drive petrol-powered vehicles.
Establishing an eastern state gas reserve continues our reliance on gas and scrapping the “rewiring the nation” plan to make clean energy more affordable will stymie our transition to renewable energy.
Whilst not mentioned in the Opposition Leader’s budget reply, the LNP’s nuclear plan continues our dependency on fossil fuels because of the 30 years it would take to come on-line and has been demonstrated to increase our emissions by two billion tonnes (CO2eq).
There are some saving graces in the Albanese Labor Government’s 2025-26 budget that indirectly support our health response to climate change.
The most notable is the Government’s plan to support Medicare with a $7.9 billion investment, expand bulk billing incentives and add 2,000 more GP training places, which will hopefully translate to more GP consultations and improved community healthcare.
This will help treat local climate health impacts and should in turn reduce the carbon footprint of healthcare by keeping people well and out of the high carbon hospital system. The Coalition states it will match this investment “dollar for dollar” if elected.
Cheaper medicines and other cost-of-living measures also have positive health impacts and thereby improve community resilience.
The Greens raised concerns about the budget delivering $56 billion in fossil fuel subsidies and Zali Steggall gave it a C-plus, stating that “fossil fuels continue to receive six times the funding allocated to nature”.
We cannot help but come to the conclusion that both the Labor party and the Coalition are harming the health of Australians by their continued reliance on fossil fuel exports.
They are wedding us to a fossil fuel future, adding further fuel to global heating fire and thereby adding to the disease burden that health professionals are seeing in our daily work.
Whoever forms government after Australia votes on 3 May, we will still have a long way to go in responding to climate change and the immense health burden it causes.
It’s vital therefore, that at the upcoming federal election, we choose candidates who will Put Our Health First – it’s a powerful way for all of us to shape future policies that will protect the health of the people and the places we love from worsening climate change.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the National Health and Climate Strategy
