00:00After a summer spent working on construction sites, tradie Gus Fitzgerald is exhausted
00:08from the heat.
00:09They're like a furnace, like an oven.
00:14It starts off in the day nice and cool, generally, and then by 12, 1, it's hot.
00:21It's hot for anyone.
00:22This year, Central Australians have been grappling with hotter than average temperatures, and
00:28earlier this month, the mercury hit 44.5 degrees, the hottest March day in Alice Springs
00:34since records began.
00:36It's character building, to say the least, I'd say.
00:40I didn't know you could get this hot.
00:42It's so hot.
00:43While Territorians are used to sizzling summer days, the Bureau of Meteorology says another
00:48record was smashed in February.
00:51We did record 13 days above 40 degrees Alice Springs, and that's a record in terms of the
00:57number of days above 40 degrees.
01:00It's not just tradies doing it tough.
01:02For those living in public housing and town camps, the searing heat can be difficult to
01:07bear.
01:08Each year, hundreds of households in Alice Springs are having their power cut when their
01:13occupants are unable to stump up the money to top up their prepaid power cards.
01:18If they haven't got money for power, they may not have money for food.
01:21So there's this vicious cycle.
01:23It's really energy poverty, and we really need decision makers across the Northern Territory
01:28and across the country to really take note.
01:31While the red centre heat is set to persist in the coming days, a change is on the horizon.
01:36I want winter so badly.
01:38I want rain and I want winter.
01:40An anxious wait for a cooler future.
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