Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So much in today's world seeks to divide us, to put us into this category or that category. From misinformation to bad-faith actors and Twitter bullies, there are more forces trying to divide us today than there have ever been before. Division lives in the present. It blinds us to the bigger things. It blinds us to the big tasks we must tackle, the wicked problems, the types of problems which require us as elected representatives to analyse, not catastrophise, to listen to the scientists, not the sceptics, to actually read the evidence and interpret the evidence, not follow the social media posts or opinion

In my electorate of Reid, the state of our environment is a major concern for so many of my constituents. From across the multicultural community groups through to our businesses, from our school children to parent groups and principals in schools, my entire electorate are concerned about climate change and what it means for their families. They also appreciate how this issue of climate change transcends local issues while still being a local issue. Reid is a long way from the country, and urban and rural Australia are too often seen as two different Australias. But my constituents see that we're reliant on each other. We are connected, whether we like it or not. I became a psychologist for the same reason I entered politics—I want to help people and I want to help people improve their lives. A key area of that mission is mental health. Rural and regional communities are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. This was a key finding of the Climate Council's 2016 report.

Rates of suicide and suicidal behaviour remain higher in our rural and regional areas, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Last year, the suicide rate of people living in areas classified as 'very remote' was 2.2 times that of people living in major cities. And while the suicide rate for people living in major cities remain below the national rate, which is 12.1 deaths per 100,000 of population, for people living in all-remote areas the suicide rate remains all above the national rate. Over the past decade suicide rates in very remote areas generally increased from 22.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2010 to 29.4 in 2019. Sadly, the rate for self-harm in our rural and regional areas mirror these suicide rates. Many factors contribute to these heartbreaking statistics, and it remains an essential and urgent area of research.

People living in rural and remote areas of Australia have so far experienced the effects of climate change in far more palpable ways than those living in our cities and suburbs. The increasing frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters such as drought and floods and bushfires will unfortunately get worse if we do not tackle climate change. In light of this, I was deeply troubled to read recent studies that suggest the environment impacts of climate change are negatively impacting the mental health of our children and young people. Rising ambient temperatures and the extreme weather events and natural disasters associated with climate change are resulting in increased rates of self-harm, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide in Australia, and also around the world. An article published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that climate change related factors such as heat, humidity, rainfall, drought, wildfires and floods were associated with a range of negative outcomes. This included psychological distress, worsened mental health and higher mortality among people with pre-existing mental health conditions, increased psychiatric hospitalisations and heightened suicide rates.

A local study by independent industry organisation Doctors for the Environment Australia discussed the positive correlation between increasing suicide and suicide attempts with hotter weather. The study also highlighted the fact that Australia is expected to become hotter than most other countries. In a joint letter published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, leading doctors in Australia echoed the link between rising temperatures and mental health and pointed out that high humidity may be contributing to the rates of hospitalisation in New South Wales for intentional self-harm, and rising more steeply in coastal regions.

The mental health of our young people is under threat not only by the concept of climate change itself as a source of anxiety but directly through the very physical effects of climate change. These studies add a significant new dimension to both Australia's climate change policy and Australia's mental health policy. This growing evidence warrants urgent study and a re-evaluation of our policy approaches. It cannot be ignored. As chair of the House Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, I believe the work of the committee will make a significant impact in this area and related areas. For now, I simply wish to highlight the relationships between these two seemingly disparate policy areas in order to foreground a more fundamental idea—seeing the big picture.

I think again of my constituents in Reid. I think of the young families, the schoolchildren, the youth, the university students, the small businesses, my multicultural community groups, the sporting organisations, the doctors who work in our local hospital, other health professionals, the community organisations, and I think they have spoken. They want further action on climate change. They want our emissions to be lower. And they think about the future and their future generations; their health and their children's health; and, more importantly, our mental health.

Further action on climate change is action on mental health, and long-term action on mental health requires long-term action on climate change. Nowhere is this twin necessity more dire than in our rural and regional areas. And no-one in this twin necessity is more crucial than our young people. We cannot ignore this research on this. We cannot turn a blind eye to this evidence. To improve the mental health of young Australians we must have a plan and a target to reduce emissions in Australia. My focus on the young is not to diminish the mental health challenges facing people of all ages. I say it simply to highlight that it is our young people who will inherit the consequences of our actions now, just as all of us are already experiencing the consequences of the decisions made before us.

We are all elected to serve our communities. That service does not cease at the end of a three-year term. As the Greek proverb goes, 'A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.' We must seize this moment. Australia needs an ambitious plan to get to net zero.