TRANSCRIPT
At the nation’s northern tip, the Torres Strait Islands lie glittering in the sea.
The Islands are in the battleground seat of Leichhardt currently held by retiring Liberal National M-P Warren Entsch - and as an election approaches, local leaders are reflecting on the issues most important to them.
Torres Strait Regional Authority Chair George Nona says climate change is further threatening a region already struggling with health, housing, and infrastructure issues.
"The climate change affecting the high water, the infrastructure, the employment, also tapping into education... What will we leave for the next generation?"
On the most northern, low-lying islands of the Torres Strait, some fear rising sea levels may soon swallow their homes.
It's prompted urgent calls for whoever wins government to reduce carbon emissions.
Uncle Paul Kabai is an Australian Climate Case Plaintiff.
"It is like Saibai is sinking. So this is not only a sea level rising, because we got unpredictable weathers. We got heavy rains in the region."
Uncle Paul Kabai says it only took four years for rising water to come over a sea wall which was meant to protect them for 50 years.
"It shows the world and the people out there, how we are affected by this rising sea levels, how quickly Saibai is sinking."
When islanders aren’t worried about water inundation, they’re on edge about water security.
TSRA Chair George Nona again.
"We just had a case on Boigu where the water was very, very low. And I think it might have if he added another extra more weeks or a month, then family was - would have been, you know, evacuated and moved down to the mainland."
Labor has committed 77-million dollars to fund the third stage of a seawalls program on five islands and to improve wastewater infrastructure.
Still, there’s a catch - Queensland’s state government will need to match the funding.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, says she has been doing her best to convince them.
But the region has also been subject to multiple health investigations, with leaders saying they’ve been talking about the same issues for decades.
Professor Sean Taylor is from Torres Health.
"We need to now start to take action and have the funds to be able to move forward, because we can't constantly just start repeating ourselves over the many years that we constantly talk about chronic disease."
