Page 3367 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022
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As people like Dr Arnagretta Hunter and Professor Sharon Friel say, this needs to be a whole-of-society endeavour, an endeavour of imagination and lateral thinking and cross-fertilisation. We need to inspire one another, build off each other’s ideas, and race each other to make the best contribution to the rising tide that lifts all boats—though I do hate that phrase.
I trust that the ACT government, in its nation-leading responses to climate change, can be the flagship and the first to tip the scales against this climate disaster. Let us do it to demonstrate continued national leadership. Let us do it to give Canberra’s young people hope. Let us do it to live up to the promise of what people expect when they elect a Labor-Greens government. And let us do it to protect the health of everyone in our community.
MS VASSAROTTI (Kurrajong—Minister for the Environment, Minister for Heritage, Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services and Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction) (5.38): I want to thank my colleague, Johnathan Davis, for his important and timely motion on climate and health, and to add my own insights, as Minister for Environment and Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction.
Increasing evidence mounds up on the links between a healthy environment and healthy humans. It is a reminder that this distinction we often create between the environment and our human health systems is such an artificial one. Our whole planet is part of the environment. Human life, like all life that we know of, exists wholly and totally within it.
It is hardly surprising that when the health of the environment is challenged or compromised, our own health suffers as well. The good news is that we are already doing a lot of detailed and practical work in the ACT to capitalise on our understanding of the connection between the environment and health. For example, our work around air quality. The end of the drought and the fires brought home just how much our air quality is affected by climate events. Average levels for particulate matter in 2021 were at some of their lowest levels in 10 years. Why? No bushfire smoke; no dust storms. The only pollutant that exceeded the national daily standard at any point during 2021 was PM2.5—fine particulate matter, that went slightly over the standard on just five days that year. On three of those days the pollutants were related to controlled burns, and on the other two days they related to woodfire heater emissions.
On the subject of wood heaters, we recently did a review of the Burn Right Tonight campaign and the woodfire heater replacement program, and this yielded interesting and largely positive findings. First, Canberrans are proud of our clean air. They support government action on air quality and want to see woodfire usage reduced over time. Financial incentives for removing wood heaters were not a big factor. The main issues were the work and the mess involved in woodfire heating, as well as increasing awareness of the environmental issues.
Second, this year’s Burn Right Tonight campaign focused on the promotion of the woodfire replacement program, and that appears to have been successful. There were
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