Heatwaves are more than a nuisance - they are a health hazard in our warming world

 

Well this last week of November 2025 certainly brought a reminder that heatwaves are not just a feature of an Australian summer, they are also a definite health hazard for many in our communities. 

Particularly those with pre-existing health conditions, as well as the very young and those in older age brackets. People who work outdoors are also at increased risk. 

[Australian Climate Service, 2025, "Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment"]

Between 1990 and 2023, the average annual number of heat wave days was 15.6 days. 

[Monash University, News, 21 July 2025, "30+ years of heat wave data to reduce impacts of extreme heat"]

In the four years between 2016 and 2019, the deaths of 1,006 people were attributable to heatwave conditions. 

[Zhihu Xu, et al, Sept 2025,Mapping heatwave-related mortality across 2288 local communities in Australia: a nationwide time-series analysis"]

During those same four years the annual heatwave-related attributable mortality rate (per 100,000 residents per year) was 1.08 nationally. While New South Wales had an annual heatwave-related attributable mortality rate (per 100,000 residents per year) of 1.38.

By way of examples closer to home, when it came to the annual heatwave-related attributable mortality rate in North East NSW during 2016-2019:

Casino Region mortality rate was 5;

Kyogle mortality rate was 4.6;

Maclean-Yamba-Iluka area mortality rate 3.7; 

Murwillumbah mortality rate 2.9;

Lismore Region mortality rate 2.6;

Grafton Region mortality rate was 1.9; and

Lennox Head-Skennars Head mortality rate 0.9. 

[The Guardian, 17 Sept 2025, "Heatwaves caused more than 1,000 deaths in Australia over four-year period, study finds"]

From 2019 to 2022, there were 2,143 hospital admissions related to extreme heat, including 717 patients from Queensland, 410 from Victoria, 348 from NSW, 266 from South Australia, 267 from Western Australia, 73 from the Northern Territory, 23 from the ACT and 19 from Tasmania. 

[AIHW, media release, 2 Nov 2023, "Extreme weather is leading to more injury hospitalisations, with heat being the main cause"]

Australian Federal Election 2022: and the economic outlook gets gloomier for us all

Bottom line, cost of living and other economic pressures are not going to ease anytime soon, with almost half of all businesses now passing on cost increases to customers.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), media release, 28 April 2022:

Source: Business Conditions and Sentiments, April 2022

More than half (57 per cent) of all businesses experienced increases in the cost of doing business over the three months to April 2022, with almost a quarter (21 per cent) reporting costs had increased to a great extent, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Consistent with the results from March, most of these businesses had seen increases to the cost of fuel or energy (83 per cent) and the cost of products or services used by the business (82 per cent).

ABS Head of Industry Statistics, John Shepherd, said: “More than half of the businesses with higher costs (52 per cent) did not increase their prices. For those that did increase prices, 42 per cent had partially passed on costs and 6 per cent had fully passed on the increases to customers.”

Businesses also provided information about other actions they had taken in response to increased business costs.

“Over a third (39 per cent) of businesses had made changes to their operations or processes and 17 per cent had renegotiated payment terms with customers and suppliers,” Mr Shepherd said.

The results also provided information about business staffing levels. One in five businesses (18 per cent) did not have enough staff in April 2022, consistent with findings in January 2022.

More than four in five businesses (84 per cent) with staff shortages were unable to find suitable staff, rising from 69 per cent in January. Uncertainty due to COVID-19 was less likely to be an influence on staffing levels (36 per cent compared to 62 per cent in January).

Further information, as well as insights into supply chain, are included in Business Conditions and Sentiments.