Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is one of the fattest nations on earth. The latest research shows that more than 60 per cent of our adults, 25 per cent of our children are either overweight or obese. Obesity leads to poor health outcomes, as has been indicated already in this chamber during this debate on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010

Obesity leads to an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended. A more active healthy lifestyle is the answer, but it is easy to say and it is hard to do. In 2011, in this era we live in, we live in an obesogenic environment where sedentary lifestyles are encouraged rather than discouraged. Our children, for example, are spending more time watching television, being involved in computers on the internet, Facebook and other media like than ever before. Incidental exercise has declined due to urban design, transport arrangements, safety and for other reasons. We eat more, including more energy-dense, nutrient-poor food. Hereditary factors are also very important. While there is much that parents and individuals can do, as has been indicated by a number of speakers in this place already, there is a collective response from all levels of government and in particular the federal government to address the needs of our broader community.

What can be done? I have some suggestions and they are as follows: firstly, targets—they are used for cutting carbon emissions, they should be used to safeguard our children’s health; secondly, children’s health and fitness should be benchmarked, just like we do for literacy and numeracy. These results will be vital for designing healthy and active initiatives in response. When it comes to changing behaviours, we need to go beyond the fear as a motivator, which is now accepted as increasingly ineffective. Encouraging children to enjoy sport and physical activity is a key part of the solution to achieve better healthy outcomes. I also suggest mandatory PE in schools. Years ago, I was banging my head against a brick wall here saying that PE must be mandatory in schools. But in 2004, I am very pleased to say, the Howard government announced at one of my healthy lifestyle forums in Launceston that it would be mandatory and that it should be 120 minutes of mandatory weekly physical activity. But in my view that is not enough. We should now set a higher target and increase that to 180 minutes over time.

The federal government has dropped the ball with respect to the Active After-school Communities program. Minister Mark Arbib unfortunately has extended the program for only one year. So we will see the conclusion of this program, unless the government has a change of plan. We know that the program works. Everybody loves it. It is popular. In Tasmania, for example, 5,000 students benefit from this program. Around Australia, 3,270 schools and 192,000 students participate, based on the last reports from the Australian Sports Commission, who have done an excellent job, including in Tasmania. It is a fantastic program. It was a program announced by the Howard government in 2004 in Launceston and it should continue. The government has dropped the ball.

Now to healthy eating habits—what about the eating side of things? They are critical for our children. In my view, only healthy food should be sold through our schools. We are creating an environment in which our kids grow up and develop habits to be the best they can be. If we are offering unhealthy food in canteens it should be removed. For example, sugary fizzy drinks should not be there. Educational programs on nutritional health and improved advertising standards are essential to address the obesity epidemic in Australia and to create better eating habits across the board.

Other initiatives, for example, should be the establishment of a voucher system encouraging participation in sport across the community; more healthy school breakfasts; veggie gardens across the country in schools and in childcare centres as well; and healthy cooking classes are recommended. If vending machines do not offer healthy options, they should be removed—and this should include in the workplace as well. Workplace health systems and procedures should be put in place. I was speaking about that only this week with an expert in the field, Ruth Colagiuri, who was in the parliament together with others for the forum on non-communicable diseases, NCDs. There is UN meeting coming up on 19 September on this issue. Let me put on the record my strong support for that resolution and my strong encouragement for the government to do whatever it can to support a greater focus on NCDs across the globe. This is not an issue just for the First World; it is an issue for the Third World. Chronic disease is becoming out of control and it needs more resources and a more dedicated focus. I draw that to the attention of the government and I hope that they will follow it up.

I called for obesity to be a national health priority back in 2006 and prior to the 2007 election Labor, to its credit, said, yes, it should be—a good announcement. However, very little has happened since then in terms of the extra resources which are needed. To summarise the cost of obesity, at my instigation Access Economics completed a report some years ago and released it at my Healthy Lifestyle Forum to Help Combat Childhood Obesity in Hobart. The report said that obesity costs the community in Australia $58 billion a year. That is a huge cost to our community in both direct and indirect associated costs. For the Tasmanian economy it is estimated to be $1 billion a year. So obesity leads to higher health costs and is a dead weight on our economy.

The fact is that with two million more Australians having become overweight or obese in the past decade, the obesity epidemic is upon us. If we do nothing, an estimated 6.9 million Australians will be obese by 2025—that is not a record. I hope that in a decade’s time we can look back and say, ‘Yes, we’ve been proactive; yes, we saw that it was a problem and we addressed it,’ in the same way that we can look back at our initiatives to combat tobacco and smoking, where we have got the rates down, and say, ‘Yes, well done. As a community, as a government—across the board—we did have success.’ It is not total success; there is still to work to do in that area. But I hope we can look back and say, ‘Yes, obesity was nominated and identified as a problem and we progressed towards fixing it.’

A lot has been said about the fast-food sector. My call on them now, as it has been over many years, is for them to be part of the solution not part of the problem. I know that moves have been made in the right direction in that regard and I congratulate McDonald’s and others in moving in that right direction. But in terms of the bill before us and the definition of junk food, the bill is simply too strict and too rigid and it is not a bill that I can support in its current form. The AANA, the Australian Association of National Advertisers, have made progress in improving their advertising standards and I know that the Australian Food and Grocery Council are working on reforms amongst their members.

There is certainly a lot more we can do in this area. I would encourage the government to take up the recommendations in the report of the National Preventative Health Taskforce. I know that Professor Rob Moodie was in Parliament House yesterday and that Professor Paul Zimmet is in Parliament House today. Other members of that taskforce put in so much effort and time. For the government to continue to sit on the report and let it get dusty is an absolute national disgrace. They should act on it fast and implement the report’s recommendations, because it is very comprehensive and well thought through.

I thank the Senate for the opportunity to make these points on this bill. (Time expired)