Media release: Action needed to stop deaths from cold homes
Thousands of Australians are dying in cold homes and a new campaign launches tomorrow to push for minimum energy efficiency standards for rental properties to prevent further deaths.
Because winter in Australia is relatively mild, our houses are not well-built to withstand cold weather. As a result, indoor temperatures can be colder, contributing to respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
A 2015 study published in the Lancet medical journal estimated that 6.5% of deaths in Australia are attributable to cold.[1]
The new Healthy Homes for Renters campaign brings together fifty community organisations across Australia to call on state and territory governments to implement minimum energy efficiency standards for rental properties. They argue this will reduce the health risks of inefficient housing. Standards could include measures to reduce heat loss through ceilings, or draughts around doors and windows.
“Renting a home in 2021 should mean a home that keeps you safe and healthy. It is not good enough that we aren’t already there.It’s time” said Leo Patterson Ross, CEO of Tenants’ Union of NSW and a spokesperson for the campaign. “We shouldn’t leave rented homes behind. Minimum standards are an effective way to achieve safe and healthy rented homes.”
Professor Peter Sly AO, a paediatric respiratory physician, echoed the concerns about the health impacts of cold.
“A healthy home environment is essential for optimizing child growth, health and wellbeing and for decreasing life-long risk of chronic disease.
“Adverse environmental exposures in early life, including during fetal development and early childhood, increase life-long risk of chronic non-communicable diseases, such as asthma, chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes, and neurodevelopmental and behavioural disorders.
“Providing a healthy home environment for children is a basic human right required to ensure they thrive and reach their potential.”
Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of ACOSS, joined the call for action
“People on low incomes often live in inefficient rental homes and have no ability to make improvements, so they are forced to either ration energy or go without other essentials like food and medicine to pay their power bills.
“Mandatory energy efficiency standards for rental properties are needed so everybody can live in a healthy home and have more affordable energy bills.”