This is the transcript of a speech delivered by Australian Academy of Science Chief Executive Anna-Maria Arabia OAM at the launch of the inaugural ‘State of indoor air in Australia 2025’ report, discussing possible impacts of the report on science.
Check against delivery.
Good morning.
I too would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people – the Traditional Owners of the land we meet on today.
I also acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of all the lands on which the Academy operates, and where our Fellows and staff live and work.
The Australian Academy of Science has a long-held interest in advancing actions to improve indoor air quality.
We consider the absence of enforceable performance standards a significant gap in Australia’s public health framework, requiring priority attention.
We [the Academy] consider the absence of enforceable performance standards a significant gap in Australia’s public health framework, requiring priority attention.
What gets measured, gets managed.
In Australia, we don’t measure nor monitor indoor air to scientifically understood standards and sensitivities.
And so, we don’t manage poor indoor air.
Just a few weeks ago, 300 global leaders united at the UN headquarters on the sidelines of the General Assembly to declare that we consider indoor air quality a basic human right.
So far, more than 165 organisations have signed the global pledge recognising clean indoor air as essential to health and wellbeing – that number is growing daily.
I invite you to do so if you haven't already.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs includes air – together with food, water, shelter, and sleep – as essential to survival.
And so, it seems inconceivable that in 2025 in Australia – and in most places around the world – action is limited in improving the air that we breathe in the places we spend around 90% of our time: indoors.
This, notwithstanding a robust and growing body of scientific evidence showing that poor indoor air quality has a negative impact on our health and wellbeing.
And notwithstanding the known and available technological solutions required to address it.
At the Australian Academy of Science, every day we seek to bring evidence to decision-making.
We bring science to the service of the nation.
To do this, we lean on the extraordinary research effort across the nation and the globe, gathering evidence and translating it for use by decision-makers like ministers, policymakers, judges, teachers, and members of the public.
We especially lean on our Fellows – Australia’s distinguished scientists elected to the Academy for their sustained scientific efforts.
World leading in the area of indoor air quality is of course Professor Lidia Morawska.
That’s why I am especially delighted to speak here at the launch of the ‘2025 State of indoor air in Australia’ report on the potential impact of this report on science.
May I first offer my congratulations to both Adjunct Associate Professor Wendy Miller and Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska on this extraordinary undertaking.
The report is both pioneering and essential.
It provides the seminal baseline on which the research community must now build.
The evidence it examines is as important as the gaps it reveals.
For the first time, Australia has a national examination of indoor air quality through the lens of different occupancy modes, pollutant risks, exposure limits, health and economic consequences, and policy responses.
The report is both pioneering and essential. It provides the seminal baseline on which the research community must now build. The evidence it examines is as important as the gaps it reveals. For the first time, Australia has a national examination of indoor air quality through the lens of different occupancy modes, pollutant risks, exposure limits, health and economic consequences, and policy responses.
By looking at indoor air quality across different building types, the findings assist in creating a hierarchy of need, illuminating where action should have the greatest priority and impact.
Most usefully, it provides state breakdowns, empowering jurisdictional decision-makers to act locally.
Importantly, it debunks myths about what regulations, ratings, standards, and laws do and don’t exist and shows how clean indoor air and energy efficiency standards can work hand in hand.
History will show that this inaugural ‘State of indoor air’ report is a ‘line-in-the-sand moment’ to both birth future strategic research efforts to fill identified data gaps; and to allow existing data to inform policy actions, nationally and globally.
I tried to skim this report, but I couldn’t.
Each chapter is revealing, and drew me in further.
And before I knew it, I had highlighted sections of every page.
It is quite unbelievable that it is the first of its kind.
It offers such fundamental information, that I feel we should have had this report decades ago.
Such is the priority we need to give our understanding and response to indoor air quality.
While it is the first, knowing Lidia and the team at Thrive, I know it will not be the last.
It can’t be the last, because for the Academy to do its job of informing decisions with evidence, we need this report to drive action.
I anticipate the report will have impacts in three key areas.
The first is to fill data gaps.
Deliberate action is needed to improve indoor air quality measurement and data collection in all building types.
I was deeply struck by the paucity of published research on indoor air quality in many settings, including in healthcare facilities, where one would expect differently.
Unbelievably, the report reveals that in Australia – the most bushfire-prone nation in the world – there is not a single published paper relating to private bushfire shelters.
I was equally struck that the ‘National action plan for the health of children and young people’, and the ‘National asthma strategy’, do not include indoor air quality in buildings.
If gas appliances and woodfired heaters and stoves are especially detrimental to those with asthma, shouldn’t priority be given to mandate indoor air quality sensors in those homes?
Going forward, research investigations are required where scientists will need to work with stakeholders across various occupancy types so that we measure, publish and manage indoor air quality in those settings.
The second is prioritisation of action requiring decision-makers in the public and private sectors, across portfolios and jurisdictions.
Where data has been published, Wendy and Lidia have very eloquently joined dots across portfolios. And it reveals much low-hanging fruit.
How is it that in 2025, we need to wonder if medical professionals routinely ask patients with respiratory illnesses questions about gas appliances in their home?
Simple modifications of design principles could better separate the proximity of garages from living areas.
The report findings illuminate whether specific classes of buildings are more suitable than others as potential evacuation centres.
And it is clear that incorporating the design and operation of schools into the ‘National preventive health strategy 2021–2030’ would have enormous impact.
I found myself wondering why we didn’t already have the answers to these questions.
So, I expect the report will assist in exerting pressure on political and policy leaders at the state and federal level – whether that be legislators, regulators, or others in the chain of influence.
And in the private sector, the findings provide invaluable insights to facility managers, owners, and builders, to support market and commercial decisions.
The third is to inform global research and action.
I understand the Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air aims to develop a 'Global framework for action'.
This cannot be achieved without national reports like this Australian blueprint.
And of course, to make it truly Australian, the report even sheds light on a microbrewery that utilises an Internet of Things sensor capability to monitor CO2!
I will conclude by sharing that the Academy is currently finalising a report on indoor air quality. It will provide a complementary resource for policymakers and is due to be published in November.
As well as providing a primer on the scientific evidence base, our report explores the policy pathways to routine measurement and monitoring of indoor air in public buildings to an agreed set of standards and sensitivities.
The places where we live, work, learn and play must be safe and healthy.
They have unique needs, challenges and pollutant profiles as illustrated in the ‘State of indoor air in Australia 2025’.
Nevertheless, we must not let the complexity of the policy challenge distract from the clarity of the scientific evidence.
The responsibility and the opportunity sit with us all to work together across government, industry and academia to translate this knowledge into policy and practice.
Congratulations once again Wendy and Lidia.
I look forward to continuing our shared effort to improve indoor air quality for all.
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© 2025 Australian Academy of Science
