The health of regional people will be impacted by a lack of climate change funding in the federal budget, the president of the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria has said.
Doctor Rob Phair said the budget had failed "rural and remote Australia again on its approach to the climate emergency".
"Addressing climate change is absolutely fundamental to the health and wellbeing of Australian communities going forward," he said.
Dr Phair said climate change action was directly related to health, particularly for those living in regional areas more susceptible to extreme weather events.
"There is almost no health condition that will not be affected by the climate crisis we're all facing," he said.
"It's the number one health challenge for our communities looking forward over the coming decades."
Dr Phair said climate change could have a wide range of devastating health impacts, from respiratory illness caused by bushfire smoke, to increased hospital admissions during heatwaves, and higher rates of suicide in rural areas during drought years.
"It's hard to over-emphasise just how fundamental this problem is," he said.
"It's going to affect every aspect in healthcare."
Australia 'playing its part'
But Environment Minister and Member for Farrer Sussan Ley said the budget had "locked in $2.3 billion of spending on the environment".
"I would be very happy to take the good doctor through what we're doing in climate resilience, adaption and mitigation," she said.
"Australia plays its part internationally, as do other countries, as they should."
The ABC's analysis of the budget's winners and losers rates renewable energy as a loser, the environment as neutral, and the Great Barrier Reef as a winner.
Ms Ley said most rural doctors she spoke to talked "about rural health services in regional Australia".
"I'd like to make it clear that this budget backs in new, improved and enhanced regional health facilities, particularly when it comes to MRIs, which haven't always been subsidised, but now will be," she said.
Mitigation verses adaptation
The Climate Council said the funding announcements were focused on mitigating the impacts of climate change — such as an estimated $5 billion over two years to support flood-affected communities — but did not do enough to address the root cause in fossil fuel emissions.
Leading economist Nicki Hutley calculated that 0.3 per cent of total expenditure for 2021-2024 was committed to climate change initiatives, falling to 0.2 per cent in 2024-2026.
Dr Phair said regional communities already facing the impacts of climate change would ultimately lose out.
"We've seen over the past few years increasing numbers of disasters in terms of bushfires, and the really severe floods this year that have devastated many communities," he said.
"And this budget has quite simply failed to take any meaningful action on climate change.
"In fact, there's a suggestion that a lot of the worthwhile programs are going to be cut back rather than accelerated, so that's a bitter disappointment."
