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Dr / Mrs / Mr / Hon { insert your MPs name here} MP

Member for {insert your electorate name here}

PO Box { number }

SUBURB STATE POSTCODE

Dear { insert your MP’s correct name here – including if they have Hon. In their prefix },

Re: OUR NATION’S CHANGING CLIMATE / AUSTRALIA’S BUSHFIRES.

My name is {your name}, and I am a constituent in your Electorate of {insert your Electorate name here}, and an active voter in Federal and State Campaigns.

I am writing to you today as I need my position noted and recorded by your office on where I stand on environmental issues for our nation, so when you represent your constituents in Parliament on any environmental issues, including voting on any environmental legislation you in fact have a correct representation of where your constituents stand.

I am deeply concerned that Australian politicians, yourself included, are not taking the issue of our changing climate and environmental issues in Australia seriously enough. This will be the policy I will be basing my vote on in 2022.

In 2019, we officially saw our hottest Summer on record (2.14 Degrees Celsius above average)* not to mention that 8 of Australia’s top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2005^, statistics and facts we can’t ignore as bushfires rage and droughts worsen. As of right now, our nation is currently on fire, houses and livelihoods are being destroyed, and lives being lost and all the while our nation is still warming.

By the Government’s own report findings, “State of the Climate 2018”, page 5, it states “There has been an associated increase in the length of the fire weather season. Climate change, including increasing temperatures, is contributing to these changes”. In that same report, it warns that the changing climate, with Australia seeing an increased temperature having risen by around 1 degree since 1910, and a drop off in cool season rainfall across mainland Australia increasing the risk of extreme bushfires in Australia.

That reality is here, with Australia in the grips of its worst national fire season ever recorded.

From a national health perspective too, this is becoming all of our issue, with air being so toxic in certain areas and cities we are being warned it is the equivalent to smoking more than a pack of cigarettes a day.

I’m asking that you don’t sit idle in your office or in Parliament house on ANY and all environmental issues. I respect and understand you may see two sides of the climate change debate. But we cannot ignore the facts now at hand that our country is burning, and we were warned. I respect and understand there are comprehensive issues in industry and jobs to do with climate change legislation, that granted I as a constituent may not fully comprehend, however, to me right now, reading and understanding from the Government’s own reports, I will not ignore anymore, the fact that the oceans are warming, the temperatures are rising, and Australia is burning. And if we don’t all do our part, both legislatively and personally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on that same report, this fire weather will continue to become more frequent and severe.