Greens call for climate emergency national stockpile
January 13, 2020
Sydney Morning Herald
Australians in smog-wreathed cities would have access to stockpiles of smoke-filtering masks under a Greens policy to establish a climate emergency national medical stockpile.
"It's almost impossible to avoid, it can claim lives, and it hurts everyone's quality of life," Greens leader Richard Di Natale said. "Already one person has died in Canberra, and the public health impacts on the broader population won't be known for months."
Visitors to Parliament House were forced to wear face masks after smoke from bushfires blanketed Canberra in a haze.
The government has made more than 1.8 million P2 masks, which help wearers breathe in fewer hazardous smoke particles, available to people living on the front lines of the fires or who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of smoke inhalation.
The masks come from an existing medical stockpile, but the Greens want to go further, advocating for the much wider distribution of masks to people in major cities.
Retailers around Australia have been forced to fly in hundreds of thousands of additional masks since the fire season began.
Bunnings owner Wesfarmers said demand for masks had been "through the roof".
Greens leader Richard Di Natale, a former GP, wants the government to make more masks available.
"The Australian Greens are launching the climate emergency national medical stockpile to reflect the immediate risk to people's health," the policy statement says. "It will give people an assurance that their government has the ability to respond to the health impacts of the fire crises, without running into the widespread mask shortages we have seen since December."
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Senator Di Natale said the government's current supply of masks, which are mostly disposable, was not enough to protect Australians.
"At most, the government's current approach can only offer a single day of improved air quality to one in five Sydneysiders," Senator Di Natale said.
The government has said it will make more masks available as the need arises.
"The government is working closely with affected jurisdictions to identify if additional masks – beyond those already being provided – are required," Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a statement last week.