Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I also am pleased to speak today on the report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, Weighing it up: obesity in Australia. I will not take a lot of the House’s time. A lot of this has already been said. I just will comment on a few things that I picked up from undertaking my role in the committee to put this report together. I guess what really was highlighted was that obesity is a very complex problem. While this report is certainly not a solution to the problem, I see this as a tool for, hopefully, legislators in this place and also in other places around Australia, including local government, urban planners and whatever. I hope they will take the information that we have put together in here and use it however it is applicable to their area.

We looked at a lot of different aspects in this report, from preventative measures with children right through. One of the more interesting and more sobering presentations was from Hunter New England Health. They spoke about the added cost to the healthcare system from morbidly obese people. I got hope out of this, as well. We had a couple of visits. We went to Marks Point Public School in the member for Shortland’s electorate, and we played sport there. I have to say that these kids were not selected athletes; they were the entire section of the school in that age group. They were healthy, active kids. There was no-one there that obviously, I do not think, had an unhealthy weight.

On another one we went to a primary school in Melbourne, where they were growing their own vegetables. City kids not only got the idea of where food came from and the joys of actually growing something—some of us who grew up in the country probably take that for granted—but also got to learn how to prepare that food. They said that, because of the lifestyles of their families, they very rarely ate together as family units. They did not see food that did not come out of a plastic bag. I was quite taken with that.

If there is one thing that comes out of this report it is that obesity is not a condition of affluence. Obesity is a condition of disadvantage and poverty. In my own electorate the highest incidence of diabetes, obesity and heart disease is in the isolated areas—that is, in my Aboriginal community, in the lower demographic. A lot of the things that the previous member spoke about are not achievable in these areas. I was at Collarenebri Central School a couple of weeks ago. They do not have enough senior boys or girls to have a netball or a football team. But, even if they did, they would not have anyone to play against because of the declining population in the area. I think originally there were thoughts that there would be recommendations on junk food advertising and on the terror of the multinational food corporations, but in the areas in my electorate that have this problem there are not any of those. We do not have any fast food restaurants. Indeed, one highlight was the expense of fresh food. I commend the information that came from the Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service. They are not only one of the leading health providers in my electorate but recognised around Australia. They spoke about the problem of not being able to buy healthy food at a reasonable price.

Another issue is education. If you have a young family—if you are a young, teenage mum with a couple of kids—and do not have a lot of education, it is hard to understand why you should pay more money and go to the trouble of preparing a healthy meal for your children when they can be easily satisfied by chips and gravy. That is the word of a witness quoted in this report. That is entirely correct. I have a relationship with the Lifehouse in Dubbo, which is run by the Riverside Church in Dubbo. It is a voluntary organisation. They are trying to reach out to these young mums. They have a food bank, where people can come along and for $25 buy approximately $80 worth of food. There is quite a complicated network to get that food there, but it is a fantastic thing. I have been trying to get funding for this since I came into this place. All they want is somewhere for the children to play so they can be supervised. Then the mums could be taught—you know, with a bag of rice and a few vegetables—how to serve a nutritious meal to their family, as well as freeze half of it and feed them again in a couple of days time, for not a lot of money. I commend the people that are doing this sort of thing.

Really, if we are going to address this problem, we need to start with the kids. It needs to be like seatbelts and smoking. I do not know how many people gave up smoking or started wearing seatbelts because their kids nagged them. I took great heart in what I saw with the kids coming through. But I will go back to the disadvantage. While it would be lovely to go walking as a family, in the housing commission areas in south Dubbo there are no footpaths. If you want to go walking with your family, you have to walk on the road. If you want to walk to the local shop, you have to cross over the Mitchell Highway. There are things like that, which we take for granted. It is a wonderful thing to do. Despite what might appear obvious, my wife and I walk on a regular basis in Canberra. We see people cycling to work and walking to walk—hundreds of them every morning—but there are cycleways, walkways and overpasses over highways.

There are gyms if you want to use them. The building I live in has a gym in it. This place has a gym in it. My adult children, who work in professions, one in Newcastle and one in Tamworth, are members of gyms. They are members of boot camps that grind up and down hills at 5.30 in the morning. They have all those advantages. But the people in Collarenebri, Mungindi and Walgett or in certain parts of Dubbo, Wellington and places like that do not have that opportunity. So while I am loath to place any more burden on teachers, who are asked to do too much now, I think somehow—maybe not through the schools—we need children to form these habits for life.

I am very pleased with this report. I have to admit I was concerned when we started that we were going to look for an easy answer. The more we delved into it, the more we realised how complicated it is. So I would like to commend Sara, Penny, James and the other members of the secretariat who worked so hard on this. I would like to thank my fellow committee members. Indeed, one of the pleasures of this place, which sometimes may be few and far between, is the committee work we do and the inspirational people we get to meet. In some cases, the grinding poverty that we get to witness has been very rewarding for me. I thank my fellow committee members for their goodwill, fellowship and friendship in putting this report together. I commend this report and I hope that over the years to come many people who are involved in public policy and even private policy can use this as a very worthwhile reference tool.

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