But fake spring is not the only season out of whack. This year, bushfire season started in winter in Australia. There were bushfires in the Arctic Circle. It's hard to wrap your mind around.

Yet the Morrison government appears content to head to the next election with no clear plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the cause of rising temperatures. It has dumped its signature policy, the national energy guarantee, and though the Prime Minister has assured the public we will meet our Paris target to reduce emissions, he has not outlined how his government will make this happen.

On climate change, Scott Morrison is the man without a plan.

It could cost him dearly. The Climate Institute has carried out an annual survey to track public attitudes to climate change for over a decade. This year, it showed public concern about climate change is at a five-year high, mostly driven by the effects of heat.

Having no discernible policy to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution is a high-risk political strategy. First, it ignores that voters of all political persuasions are concerned about the effects of climate change and rising temperatures,  such as droughts, bushfires and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. Second, it ignores that climate change is likely to be a huge issue in the Wentworth by-election where the Liberal vote has crashed – hardly sensible politics when the government is holding onto its majority by its fingernails. Third, rising temperatures cause real policy problems for infrastructure, for sectors of the economy like agriculture, and for public health – to name just a few.

This week, many of us watched Four Corners' expose of the aged-care sector in horror, including the story of Catherine Logan, who was stuck in her aged-care home on an extremely hot day, all day and night with no air-conditioning – not even a fan. She survived to tell her loved ones, but it was exceptionally dangerous.

Heat kills. It's a gruesome reality.

The average human body temperature is 37 degrees. If your body temperature is above 40 degrees, you are considered to have severe hyperthermia and are in danger of dying if not treated immediately.

As we head into summer, it's worth remembering that, at temperatures above 35 degrees, the human body's ability to cool itself reduces, making it a common benchmark temperature for occupational health and safety experts, academic and government researchers. Combined with 70 per cent humidity, conditions over 35 degrees are considered "extremely dangerous" by government agencies such as the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At most risk are the elderly, the very young and the very sick, and those who work in labour-intensive heat-exposed industries like agriculture or construction.

In November 2009, during its record-breaking heatwave, Adelaide's morgue ran out of space, forcing authorities to store corpses in a refrigerated freight container. In 2003, more than 14,000 people died of hyperthermia in France alone during a European heatwave. These were preventable deaths.

At least France has some clear plans to fix things. It has pledged to phase out all oil and gas production by 2040 and aims to end the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles by the same date. It also introduced a heat health watch warning system to avoid preventable deaths during heatwaves and extremely hot days.

In contrast, Australia is a policy vacuum.

That's why the Australia Institute released the first in a series of HeatWatch reports this week that will track the forecast increase in extremely hot days in specific regions, using data from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

HeatWatch began with Rockhampton and Gladstone in Queensland. The number of days over 35 degrees has nearly doubled in Rockhampton in recent years and is forecast to triple in the absence of strong policy responses to climate change. About half of summer days in Rockhampton will be over 35 degrees by 2070. In Gladstone, CSIRO forecasts are already being exceeded and extreme heat days have already risen to levels that were not predicted to occur before 2050.

A couple of hot days are great for the pool or the beach in summer, but they far from fun when it's too hot to sleep for days on end, or when it's a struggle to go about your daily life – as anyone who lives in Adelaide or Western Sydney can attest.

The policy problems that this extreme heat will cause are not limited to health. Rockhampton beef farmer Mick Alexander said: "Some of the biggest issues we are facing in central Queensland are the increased rate of evaporation of water storages and the impact of hot conditions on cattle where vegetation has been over cleared in past years. Climate change is causing extremely hot summers and even unseasonably hot winters are forcing us to rethink paddock layout, tree retention and even man-made shade structures to reduce heat impact on livestock."

The government's climate policy black hole is letting down farmers like Alexander.

Heat also stresses infrastructure. More severe and more frequent bushfires damage property, but on hot days we also have seen roads physically melt. In Victoria, rail lines that were not built to withstand extreme heat buckled in 40-degree temperatures in 2009, causing mass train cancellations and commuter chaos.

Gas and coal-fired power stations fail in the heat, too, right when we need them most. During the February 2017 heatwave across south-eastern Australia, across the national electricity market, 14 per cent (3600 megawatts) of gas and coal-fired electricity generation capacity failed during critical peak demand periods in three states as a result of faults, largely related to the heat.

Gladstone power station is nearing the end of its operating life and is due for replacement. If the government had a clear policy to drive investment in clean-energy generation, the market would see the station replaced by clean energy that won't fail in the heat. But there's little chance of that under a Morrison government. When the government dumped the national energy guarantee, all the "certainty" promised to investors, business and the energy sector evaporated like a puddle of water on a 35-degree day.

It's a fair dinkum mess.

Ebony Bennett is deputy director of the Australia Institute. Twitter: @ebony_bennett