Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing report Weighing it up: obesity in Australia. I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Hindmarsh and the member for McPherson. I also see other committee members here. The member for Dawson and the member for Kingston are in the chamber, and I look forward to hearing and reading their contributions as well, particularly that of the member for Kingston, who gave us a great display of Tai Chi prowess on the Gold Coast trip that we had. I am sure her hamstrings are still suffering from that trip, but it was a great display of Tai Chi.

I spoke about this report previously and endorsed the chair’s comments at that time, and I also acknowledged his efforts during the inquiry. Again I say to you, Steve Georganas, the member for Hindmarsh, thank you. I would also like to take this opportunity to recognise the efforts of your staffer Heather Atcheson, who travelled with us on some of the hearings and helped us tremendously during that period of time. If you could pass that on to Heather, that would be great. I also acknowledge the previous deputy chair of the committee, the member for Menzies, Mr Kevin Andrews, whose place I took on this committee. As I said previously, some of the other committee members are here, and I look forward to their contributions, as they were contributing during the inquiry as well.

This inquiry was into what is seen as an increasing problem in Australia—the level of obesity amongst adults and children of our nation. This report made 20 recommendations, ranging from urging the government to continue supporting existing programs, such as the Active After-school Communities program and the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program—which unfortunately I was not able to attend, because I was not on the committee at that time, but listening to the member for McPherson and the member for Hindmarsh it seems as though I missed out on an excellent meal and contributions by some young people in our community—through to recommending the development and implementation of the healthy food code of good practice in conjunction with industry. The recommendations considered tax incentives and what more could governments do. Food labelling was considered—and I know the member for Kingston was particularly enamoured with that approach. She unfortunately did not get up the recommendation that she wanted, but it was a great effort and she did a lot of lobbying in the background. Urban planning was seen as an important step to encourage Australians to be healthy and active.

While the report recognises that individuals are ultimately responsible for their own health and wellbeing, the inquiry has highlighted that the modern environment in which we all live can make weight loss very difficult. It is stated in chapter 6 of the report that any strategy to successfully combat the growing problem of obesity will need to include community involvement and programs that are community centred. All three levels of government will need to be involved and be supportive of any group within the community that runs programs that are designed to encourage community participation and involve people from the local community to take ownership of these programs.

Many areas were covered in this report. As the chair mentioned, the personal, economic and social costs to Australia from obesity place stress on our community and health services in all areas and underpin the need for action. Many people have different and varying views on this subject, extending from the simplistic solution—which someone contributed to me on a flight coming over from Perth one day—of increasing breastfeeding rates in Australia from 19 per cent to over 50 per cent to help fight obesity and other chronic illnesses in our society to another simple act of reducing our intake of fructose.

Community awareness of this societal problem is increasing, and we must continue to alert all Australians to the benefit of a healthy lifestyle. In my previous speech I mentioned that I personally tried fructose reduction in my diet and six months later I am 10 kilograms lighter.

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