Keep your community safe this Summer and help to amplify parent voices.

Across Australia families are experiencing the impacts of extreme weather. Extreme weather made worse by burning coal and gas. 

Heatwaves, severe storms and flooding are threatening the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of Australian families. 

Low-income families are often disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events.

The voices and stories of Australian families are under-represented when it comes to the impacts of extreme weather events. And the media is not connecting the dots on what is driving the increased severity of heat and summer storms.

Parents for Climate is campaigning for long-term solutions. But summer and extreme weather is already upon us, so we also need to look out for each other and help keep each other safe.

Sign up now and we will email you:

• Essential tips for staying cool and navigating the heat
• Key resources for keeping safe in extreme weather
  
• Our guide on how to connect with others in your community to keep each other safer

We’ll also provide opportunities for you to share your story so we can let more people know what Australian families are facing, how they are supporting each other and the actions that will make a difference.

To the Hon. Catherine King MP

Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government

Dear Minister King,

We write to you as concerned parents, because the evidence is clear: truck pollution is harming our children, and the federal government has the power to act.

New research, authored by leading Australian academics has quantified what communities living on freight corridors have known for years. 

Heavy vehicle exhaust emissions are causing preventable deaths and unnecessary illness. The annual health cost exceeds $6.8 billion - borne by patients, taxpayers, and workers.

Our children are the most vulnerable. They breathe faster. Their bodies are still developing. 

• One in six schools and childcare centres across Australia’s capital cities are close enough to busy roads to raise serious health risks. 
• Nearly 9% of new childhood asthma cases in our region are linked to traffic pollution, and heavy vehicles are responsible for a quarter of that pollution. 
• Pollution at one approved childcare centre was equivalent to children inhaling the smoke from 8.4 cigarettes a day.

This is a national problem. Freight corridors run through suburban streets in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Parents in every capital city raise their kids in neighbourhoods, and send their children to schools where the air they breathe is making them sick and affecting their development.

Minister, this year your government will revise the Heavy Vehicle National Law. We urge you to use this opportunity to protect Australian children. Specifically, we call on you to:

1. Strengthen emissions standards for heavy vehicles. Make CO2 emissions part of our Heavy Vehicle Emissions Standards to accelerate the shift towards zero emissions trucks. 
2. Support truck drivers and small businesses to accelerate the transition. 92% of trucking businesses are small operators. They need help with the upfront costs of switching to zero-emission trucks, and they need regulatory barriers like weight and access limits reformed so that cleaner, heavier electric trucks can operate on our roads. 
3. Protect children from truck pollution now. Establish buffer zones between freight corridors and schools, childcare centres and playgrounds. Fund mitigation in high-risk areas, including green barriers and air filtration systems for schools on freight routes.

We ask you to make children’s health part of the equation when you reform the Heavy Vehicle National Law this year. Our kids cannot wait.

Yours sincerely,

Parents for Climate

On behalf of parents, carers and grandparents across Australia

Update: We raised our voices and they backed down!

After Parents for Climate spoke out in the media and collected hundreds of petition signatures, the committee has reversed its decision to delay the report until July, and instead released it on March 31.

See our media release here. 

Australian families are being left in the dark.

The Senate inquiry into household electrification promised answers on how switching to clean energy can cut power bills and keep families safe. But despite clear evidence that electrifying homes can save households up to $1,000 a year, the final report is being delayed until after the federal election.

A cost of living crisis is no time to delay solutions. Later is too late.

We call on the Senate Economics References Committee and chair Senator Andrew Bragg to release the Household Electrification Report immediately. Families have the right to know how clean energy can reduce living costs, improve home safety during extreme weather, and create healthier spaces for our kids.

Every day this report is stalled is another day families are left paying more.

🔆 Sign now to demand transparency and solutions that put Australian families first.