Gas Phase-Out Pushed With Fanfare While Wood Heater Pollution Sits Idle: Victoria Accused of Shifting Public Health Burden Onto Households

Victoria, Australia's second most populous state, is flying the flag of "full electrification" and will require new residential and commercial buildings to ditch gas from January 2027. Yet a parliamentary inquiry raised the alarm as far back as 2021, and it has taken nearly five years to elicit a government response that has been criticised as "doing nothing". Clean air advocates point out that the state government has chosen to turn a blind eye to wood heater pollution, shifting the health costs that should be borne by public policy onto asthma sufferers and ordinary households.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in 2021 Victoria's parliament released an inquiry report on the health impacts of air pollution, putting forward nine recommendations on wood smoke, including launching a state-level public awareness campaign and considering subsidies for the gradual phase-out and removal of wood heaters in cities and densely populated areas. Under parliamentary requirements, the government's response should have been submitted in 2022, but it was not formally tabled in parliament until June 2026.

Patient Arabella Daniel has asthma and has been monitoring the air quality at her rental home in southeast Melbourne for six years. She told the ABC: "There are several months of the year when I can't open doors or windows for ventilation." She said smoke from nearby chimneys, pizza ovens and fire pits seeps into her 103-year-old home and irritates her throat, prompting her to install multiple air purifiers.

Daniel felt hopeful when giving evidence to the parliamentary inquiry, but after reading the government's response she said: "They have not responded to any of the inquiry's recommendations, just talked about what we are already doing. There are no new actions at all."

The scale of wood heater pollution is far from insignificant. The state's 2022 Air Quality Strategy found that there are around 240,000 wood heaters across the state, and without a reduction in usage they will cause approximately A$8 billion in health damage over the decade from 2018 to 2028. Yet the core data the state government relies on to judge the relative contribution of various air pollutants is still an Environment Protection Authority air pollution inventory from a decade ago. Daniel criticised that information on the sources of major air pollutants has not been updated since.

Notably, the electrification push championed by the state government makes no mention of wood. Minister for Energy, Resources and Environment Jaclyn Symes said the state has "strict wood heater sales standards" to ensure equipment is cleaner, more efficient and properly installed. She said: "Wood heaters are an important source of heating for many Victorian residents, particularly in regional communities, but we also know that wood smoke affects air quality." Yet she made no mention of specific action on the parliament's nine recommendations.

Robert Phair, a hospital general practitioner in East Gippsland, also submitted his views to the inquiry. He was blunt in saying that the state government had wasted the time of a large number of air pollution experts over a decade. He told the ABC: "They have not only missed opportunities, but have seriously let the community down by failing to take any effective action on domestic wood heaters. The inquiry report discussed in detail some important measures they could have taken, but they simply found it easier and more politically convenient to do nothing, so the response is extremely disappointing." He believes the harm from wood smoke is comparable to that of cigarette smoke.

Not all households are opposed to using wood heaters. Richard and Linnett Wheelright of Wodonga told the ABC that they had chosen wood heaters for their two most recent home builds, believing them to be more efficient, to retain heat longer, and that they could obtain firewood free of charge through collection points set up by the state government. Richard said: "I think it's much better to have a diversity of energy sources rather than just focusing on one. Phasing out both gas and wood is a foolish approach — the energy basket should be filled with all kinds of choices." The opposition has pledged to scrap the gas ban but has yet to state its position on wood heater regulation.

Behind the high-profile electrification timetable lies a long-standing absence of systematic monitoring and regulation of hundreds of thousands of wood heaters. The multi-billion-dollar health damage estimate, the nine unimplemented parliamentary recommendations, and an environmental data baseline still a decade old have led clean air advocates to the same conclusion: the state government is not unaware of the cost of wood heaters, but has chosen to leave that cost to households to absorb. Residents like Daniel, who have to pay out of pocket for air purifiers and endure long periods without being able to open windows for ventilation, are paying the price for a public health risk that should be underwritten by systematic regulation.