Now, six months later, another divide is opening up between those who can afford to run an air conditioner and those who can’t.

In both circumstances, people’s health and wellbeing are at stake with children and the elderly being some of the most at risk.

Like meat and petrol, electricity has become another staple product where, for those that are struggling, urgent calculations must be made to see how much use can keep you out of the red by month’s end.

It’s not just about comfort.

Murrumbidgee Local Health District has warned that heat puts a lot of strain on the body and can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke and can also make underlying health conditions worse.

There’s also the fact that Australia’s maximum temperatures are breaking new records.

The Bureau of Meteorology had to add a new bright purple colour on its maps in 2013 to display extreme temperatures.

Western areas of the Riverina made it into the top 15 hottest places on Earth this week.

While air conditioners were once seen as a luxury to be proudly advertised on signs outside hotels and cinemas, they seem more of a necessity when nighttime temperatures are staying well above 30 degrees.

However, every new air conditioner increases the peak load demand for the power grid.

A growing area like Wagga could be adding a significant cost to the price of meeting the spike in demand when people switch on an appliance that can use as much power as several microwave ovens running constantly.

Much of that power is supplied by coal-fired stations, meaning that air conditioning is making its own contribution to rising temperatures.

But for right now politicians are scrambling to come up with strategies of reducing power prices that hopefully will mean that more strategies for preventing heat stress will be available for more people.