John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much; I was just looking for a compliment! After my sporting career, I got into the business of developing health clubs, in Adelaide, in Perth, in Sydney, in Canberra and in Auckland. In fact, the one in Sydney is in the electorate that I now serve, in Ryde. We developed the Sydney Olympic centre there, with the Next Generation Club. There were three criteria for the development of Olympic facilities. It had to house an Olympic event, it had to give service to the community afterwards, and it had to be viable. And I'm pleased to say that the Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre of the Next Gen Club is the only one of the Olympic venues that met all three criteria. It remains viable, and one million people benefit from that each year.

This followed on from my father, who got involved in preventive medicine at a point in time and started an executive fitness club with Les Gonner, who was a physical trainer and trained a lot of athletes, and Dr Bernard Lake, who was Australia's first preventive medico. The idea was to actually extend life through exercise and diet, and this was to be judged on the basis of insurance companies and their projection of life expectancy, based on the criteria of blood pressure, cholesterol levels, fat levels, lifestyle and other factors. At the commencement of this enterprise—which still operates today; this was started in 1965—several of the men who were commencing the exercise program were actually older than their life expectancy. They were literally ticking time bombs. They had high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, they were terribly overweight, and they had dreadful lifestyles of eating too much and drinking too much. But with an exercise program three mornings a week and a healthy breakfast, they turned their lives around and became exemplars of what healthy ageing should be. They were physically active, they were mentally active, they were engaged; they had a camaraderie amongst each other where there was a great penalty if anyone failed to show. So it was a very, very successful effort and it showed me what could be done. Hence my getting into politics, because this was one of my great interests.

To this end, in the local community, I've approached one of the pharmacies in the Macquarie Centre, the medical centre, and the Fitness First club to discuss the prospect of initiating a prescription of exercise so that people who present at the pharmacy can be advised, if they're in a modest condition, to go to Fitness First and engage in a fitness program—that is, they get a prescription of exercise. If they present in a worse condition, they should have medical advice and therefore a higher level of care when they are going to exercise, and be careful not to overexercise, until they get into shape.

This is an area that I think is very important. I would like to see this type of program rolled out because, when we often talk about the cost of exercise and the cost of these programs, it's a far greater cost if we do nothing. One of the biggest costs in our health system is that of treating lifestyle illness—illness as a result of poor lifestyle. So I look forward to this being rolled out across the country, and I ask the minister to elaborate on the government's efforts to promote preventive medicine and sport. Thank you.

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