By Veronique Hamilton, a credentialed mental health nurse and founder of a business, Exploring Minds, who has worked as a Mental Health Postgraduate Coordinator, Mental Health Promotion Officer, in addition to clinical roles in multidisciplinary teams and settings.
As a mental health nurse, I have spent years working at the intersection of people’s health and the environment they live in. I have seen, first-hand, how climate change is already affecting both, often more than many imagine.
During my career working in mental health promotion covering Gippsland in eastern Victoria, I witnessed the devastation caused by the Black Summer bushfires five years ago. The anguish and heartache experienced by so many will stay with me for life. Physical injuries heal but emotional scars run deep.
Disasters can touch us in many ways, including through increases in family violence, drug and alcohol use, and ongoing mental health problems. These impacts don’t just occur during the time of a natural disaster, they can be felt for months and even years after, continuing to erode the wellbeing of entire communities.
Mirboo North, just 160 kilometres east of Melbourne, is a place that remains close to my heart, even after moving away. Much of the town was left in ruins after another terrible disaster, a freak storm with cyclonic winds, caused enormous upheaval, touching the lives of people I know both personally and professionally.
I witnessed not only the immediate trauma experienced by adults but also the profound distress endured by so many children who saw such a violent and unexpected storm unfold before them.
Beyond this initial shock, the long-lasting emotional toll — including financial strain, housing instability, and the slow, arduous process of recovery — continues to affect the community. These patterns have become all too familiar.
The climate crisis is the greatest threat to global health, having a profound impact on the spread of infectious diseases, the severity of non-infectious diseases and it’s contributing to deteriorating mental health, particularly in young people, according to significant new University College London and Bristol Medical School research published by the Future Healthcare Journal.
Now based in Queensland, I deliver mental health education and training in regions of South-East Queensland impacted by evermore frequent and severe disasters including floods, cyclones and fires. Time and again, I see how trauma accumulates, especially within farming communities under immense stress from both ecological and economic pressures linked to our changing climate.
This is why I am calling on HESTA to end its support for fossil fuel expansion and take stronger action to protect the climate. As a superannuation fund representing over one million health and community service workers, HESTA has a responsibility not only to secure members’ financial futures, but also to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve.
Climate change is a health emergency. Every year, more Australians are affected by extreme weather events, food and water insecurity, air pollution, and ecological disruption. The mental health impacts are staggering and they are escalating.
Whether it’s the trauma of surviving a bushfire, the stress of rebuilding a life after a flood, or the persistent anxiety young people express about an uncertain and unsafe future, we are seeing a new kind of health crisis unfold — one driven by the heating of our climate.
Rising temperatures could increase the burden of mental and behavioural disorders by almost 50% by 2050, according to a recent study from the University of Adelaide published in Nature Climate Change.
And that future isn’t abstract. It’s here, now.
In my work with young people, I often hear their frustration and grief, not just about the environmental destruction they’re witnessing, but about the seeming inaction from those in power. They’re asking: why aren’t adults doing more? Why is action so slow?
This is a question I pose to HESTA.
Despite public commitments to sustainability, HESTA continues to invest in companies pursuing new fossil fuel projects, a direct contradiction of its stated values. No matter how responsibly these investments are framed, the reality is that expanding gas mining and infrastructure puts more lives and ecosystems at risk. It undermines the vital work done by our health professionals every day to protect and promote wellbeing.
I acknowledge that HESTA has taken important steps in the right direction. But those steps are not enough. Not when communities are burning, flooding, and suffering, and not when we know that a liveable future depends on urgent, bold change.
HESTA must fully divest from all fossil fuel companies that are expanding or enabling new projects as highlighted by clean energy finance advocacy organisation, Market Forces. Australia’s leading health super fund has a duty to invest more in clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, and industries that support community resilience.
Most importantly, the fund must listen to its members, health workers who are already dealing with the fallout of climate inaction and who want to see their retirement savings aligned with the values of care and prevention that define our professions.
There is no health without protecting our climate. It’s time for HESTA to live up to its responsibility by protecting not only our financial security, but the health of the people and planet we all depend on.
First published in Croakey.org