Which Parties Pass the Health Check?

by Climate And Health Alliance

A health check of federal political parties’ policy commitments

CAHA measured the policies and commitments of the Liberal Party of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Greens, and two independent candidates against a selection of key policy questions.

The questions are based on the Healthy, Regenerative and Just framework for a national strategy on climate, health and wellbeing for Australia. This framework offers a policy roadmap for the Commonwealth Government to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement and protect the health and wellbeing of Australian communities from climate change.

Seventy health and medical organisations have endorsed this framework, as well as the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens.

The framework consists of over 100 policy recommendations that are divided into 8 key areas of policy action. The CAHA Scorecard highlights the parties’ performance on 17 of these policy recommendations.

Assessing policies

We sent the parties and candidates CAHA’s Healthy Regenerative and Just framework, as well as a survey with the policy questions in February 2022. We then analysed the parties answers to the survey, and complemented these with further
analysis of public statements and announcements. This analysis was shared with the parties in April 2022, allowing all parties and candidates the opportunity to point out and offer corrections to any errors or omissions. The independent candidates were assessed similarly.

To award a score to a policy, we required a response to our survey questions, a formal public statement (eg. a press release, official website content) or commitment in writing to CAHA, approved by the party or signed by the portfolio holder.

For each of the policy questions, we assessed how comprehensively each party has committed to each recommendation, and awarded one of three possible scores:
● Committed (green) i.e. the party states that they are committed in response to the survey and have specific policies or public statements that demonstrate their commitment OR they have not responded to the survey but have specific policies or
public statements that demonstrate their commitment.
● Partly committed (orange) i.e. the party states that they are committed in response to the survey but has not committed to any detailed plans or supporting policies thus far OR the party has related policies or public statements that do not fully address
the question but adequately demonstrates their commitment to protect the health of Australians from the impacts of climate change.
● Not committed (red) i.e. the party does not respond to the survey question and has no related policies or public statements that adequately demonstrate their commitment to protect the health of Australians from the impacts of climate change.

Read the full assessment of the parties’ positions: CAHA 2022 Federal Election Scorecard Methodology Paper (nationbuilder.com).