Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's welcome that the Australian community is seriously focused on the risks and impacts of climate change, but perhaps the specific impacts on human health are not yet a large enough part of the conversation. Last week, in my electorate, I was glad to meet with eight members of Doctors for the Environment Australia, who emphasised to me the real and significant health challenges that come with global warming. I heard from Dr Sallie Forrest, who came with her baby daughter, Nina. Both Sallie and Nina have epidermolysis bullosa, a condition that causes fragile and easily blistered skin, which is exacerbated by higher temperatures. I also heard from Grainne McCabe, who lives with multiple sclerosis. Like 90 per cent of Australians with MS, Grainne's symptoms are significantly worse in the heat.

The group also pointed to the inequitable burden of climate change effects, noting that those on low and fixed incomes, those in rental housing and those in outer metro or rural and regional Australia will be less able to mitigate against rising temperatures and, in fact, already experience poorer health and poorer access to health services. For all these reasons, it is vital that we take timely, measured action to reduce emissions in Australia, as this Albanese Labor government is doing, and to show leadership in the global effort to act on climate change.

I want to pay tribute to the people who contacted me. I know they'll be contacting members around the country. And I want to say thanks for the advocacy and the campaigning work of Doctors for the Environment Australia.