Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start, can I say that I endorse everything that the member for Shortland said. The member for Shortland is on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing with me and I know her interest in this area and how seriously she takes this issue.

I rise today in support of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. This bill creates an agency which will provide evidence based advice to health ministers on key national-level preventative health issues, either at their direction or by providing information about emerging challenges and threats. It will also provide national leadership, which is very important and something that we have not seen for 11 years, and stewardship of surveillance data on preventable chronic diseases. We are seeing the emergence of these lifestyle diseases, as they are called, which relate to risk factors and the agency will work to improve the availability and comparability of the evidence of links.

Illnesses of modern day life, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, blood pressure and obesity, can be prevented. These are preventable illnesses. We know that cardiovascular disease is caused by the excesses of today’s modern world. We all eat too much. We do not exercise enough. We know that the cause of diabetes is, again, lifestyle. We are seeing increasing numbers of people with diabetes in our communities. Blood pressure is another example. The list goes on.

The whole idea is to prevent these illnesses, or at least do all that we can to ensure that people know all they can about the prevention of these illnesses. We know that you can prevent these things by exercise and by eating less. That is something that we should all be doing—perhaps I am not a very good example of that, but I do try occasionally. When I do try, those kilos do drop off. It is important that we keep this in mind and change our lifestyles to ensure that we do go on to live healthier and longer. As I said, all these diseases are preventable—cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, just to name a few. All of these diseases can be prevented if we lead the right lifestyles.

In today’s modern world it is difficult and it is hard. This is where governments and our community come in, to ensure that we are doing all that we can to encourage people to eat less and to exercise more. We live in a world today where both parents work; where they rush home from work; where we are all very busy; and where sometimes it is easier to go and get some takeaway than to sit down and have a traditional cooked meal as we used to many, many years ago.

When I was chairing the inquiry into obesity by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, where we delivered the report, Weighing it up: obesity in Australia, one of the things we also discovered was that many people have lost the art of nutritional cooking. Because of the lifestyles of today, many people have not passed on those culinary skills to the next generation. We have found that within one generation we have lost the whole art of healthy, nutritional cooking that our grandparents and great-grandparents had. But these are all things that can be overcome. These are not things that we have to just sit back and accept.

During the inquiry we visited some schools and saw some great things. One school that stands out is the primary school in the suburb of Northcote. They conducted a particular project: part of the children’s science class was to grow vegetables, to grow food. They learnt about the science side of it, as well as the nutritional benefits, but they also learnt some culinary skills through having to cook their meals. There was no canteen or tuckshop in the school. Every day their lunch was cooked by the children themselves in the communal kitchen. They used the ingredients from the garden, and food was bought from the butcher and other places. We saw some great, healthy foods being cooked. For example, we saw a lentil dish that these kids cooked the day we were there. After the cook-up, they all sat down and shared their meal. They were learning about the scientific side—the growing of the vegetables—they were learning about healthy, nutritional eating, and they were learning the culinary skills. When we spoke to them about takeaway food, they complained that sometimes their parents wanted to get takeaway and the kids would tell them off and say, ‘No, we should cook a meal that is very simple,’ and they had all the skills to be able to do it. This is a classic example of putting preventive health into action by educating the next generation. This was a great example. These kids will grow up knowing nutritional food, knowing what is good for them, and I dare say that most of them will be much healthier than their parents if they continue along these lines.

We all have a role to play in this: governments including state and local governments, community, industry and all of us for ourselves. We have seen many successful campaigns in the past, such as the campaigns to reduce the number of people smoking; the AIDS campaign which was very successful in the mid-80s; and the Life. Be In It campaign, with Norm. Most people around my age would remember Norm. I cannot remember what his partner’s name was, but she was very healthy and liked to be active, and Norm would always sit on the couch. These were all campaigns that were proven, tested and were working.

Currently, there is a great campaign on television called Weighing It Up. It shows a man walking through a measurement belt. His young daughter throws a ball at him, but he gradually gains weight as he is walking. It is a great ad that hits you, and it shows how easy it is for those kilograms to creep on over the years and the damage that those kilograms can then do. This particular ad shows this man turning his life around—within seconds of course, although in reality it takes a lot longer—and it does bring the message home. We have managed to ensure that the number of people in Australia who smoke has been drastically reduced, and that has been through campaigns telling people the damage that cigarettes and smoking do. Through education we have a whole generation of people now who understand that it is dangerous to smoke, that it will affect their health and they will die from it one day. I look around sometimes and wonder how many people I know over the age of 60 who still smoke. I do not know any because those who did are either dead or have quit. So that is a good message for our young people who are contemplating smoking: it does do damage and you will die from it one day. The AIDS campaign was another great campaign, and Australia had one of the lowest rates of AIDS in the world due to the quick action of the then government that took on this big advertising campaign showing the dangers and all the issues involved with that disease.

The House committee, as I mentioned, produced the report Weighing it up: obesity in Australia. We saw the connection between obesity and illnesses and diseases and how the majority of the illnesses and diseases were caused by our lifestyle. We saw the many issues that were involved but also learnt how we could assist in turning it around to ensure that people lived healthier lifestyles. As I also said, it is something in which all of us have a role to play. That includes local government, state government, the federal government, industry and us as individuals in the community. For example, one thing that I cannot for the life of me ever understand is this. Every time a restaurant or a business opens up somewhere local government requires that they have X number of car parks. That does not encourage anyone to walk or catch a bus. It means that we expect to find a car park in front of the premises that we are going to. These are just some little things that could change the attitudes of people. If you cannot find a car park, you will leave your car further up or you will catch public transport and do a bit of walking.

We have created massive Westfield shopping centres out in the middle of suburbia which have ensured that every little corner shop has shut down. Therefore, you have to physically get into a motor vehicle to drive down to the shopping centre and park your car right out the front. You find the closest car park that you can. You go in and do a little bit of shopping, go back into your car and then drive all the way home—with no exercise at all. Many years ago, our shopping and our other activities were done in the suburban main street. I think this still goes on in some of the country towns. You would walk down the main street, you would go to the butcher and you would say hello to a few people. It was also good for the mind, because you would have a discussion with half a dozen people along the way. This has all vanished from our landscape. A lot of the things that we used to do that kept us healthy—without us even knowing about it—have disappeared. I think we have a lot to answer for when it comes to our planning laws. Local governments, state governments and all of us have played a role in this. We have not thought of the other effects that these planning laws have had on our health. We all have a role to play. We need to ensure that, when we come up with planning laws, we take into account bikeways, pathways and connectivity so that people can feel comfortable about going out. We should encourage people to walk or to lead lifestyles where they are exercising and they do not even know about it.

As the member for Shortland said, the committee visited a school in her electorate. It was Marks Point Public School. They had a program going that they asked us to get involved in. It was an exercise program, and it was a lot of fun. You played different sports. They were very simple sports. There was a sport called ‘sockey’, where there was a ball similar to a soccer ball but you hit it with a big hockey stick. It was great fun. By the end of it I realised I had done some exercise without even knowing I was exercising. These are the things that we have to encourage people to do. We also saw the tai chi that the Gold Coast City Council offered its residents free of charge on a park near the beach every morning. It was wonderful to go out there and see what they were doing. Many pensioners were part of the group that would come out in the morning and do tai chi. It was about encouraging people to exercise and get some fresh air. Again, there was the other issue of connecting with other people. As many of them were very elderly, if not for the tai chi class they might not have seen anyone else for the rest of the day.

There are other preventive areas that we should be looking at as well. I am pleased that the government has looked at binge drinking and alcohol. It is very sad when you go out on a Saturday night, in many of the city centres, and see young adults, young adolescents and young people absolutely blind drunk. That is in some circumstances. I am not saying all kids do this. The damage that binge drinking does to the mind and to the body will obviously have effects on their health in future years. I am glad that the government is tackling that area of alcohol and binge drinking.

We should be working very hard to educate young people that it is not good for you to binge drink and wipe yourself out. I do not know why we have this culture, but it is a cultural thing and we have to turn it around. I think the only way we can turn it around is through preventative health programs such as what is being proposed here. There will be some advertising, and we have seen lots of good advertising about binge drinking. But it is also a cultural thing. We need to change people’s way of thinking and let them know that it is not okay to binge drink and wipe yourself out. As I said, the health effects will be a big issue in the future.

The government is tackling these big issues through this particular bill, through the alcopops bill and through the advertising on obesity that we have seen on TV. These issues are very, very important. As the member for Shortland said earlier, and as many other speakers have said in this debate, we are an ageing population. We are living longer. But the costs to governments to provide the required health services are going to be enormous. For example, in the inquiry into obesity we heard that Access Economics have done some figures showing that the fact that we are an overweight nation is already costing us $68 billion a year. That is a lot of money and it will only increase; it is on the way up. Unless we can turn it around, for any government—whether Labor, Liberal, National or Callithumpian—funding our health services in the future is going to be an enormous task. We must turn it around. We received a lot of evidence during the inquiry from professors, doctors and cardiologists that perhaps the next generation would be the first generation in hundreds of years that lived a shorter life than the one before because of lifestyle. That would be due to us overeating, overdrinking and leading the lives that we do. The future health costs will be enormous unless this issue is tackled at this point in time so that we can turn it around. How do we do that? Again, the only way to do it is through preventative health measures. Preventative health is so important, especially, as I said, given the ageing population and the estimation of future costs.

When I visit the doctor occasionally in my electorate, I go to a fantastic clinic that I have been going to ever since I was a little kid—the Western Clinic. I have great doctors there, Dr Chia and Dr White, who regularly talk to me about preventative health. I had a discussion with Dr Chia, when I was there last, about this bill and what we were doing. He basically said that this was the way to go. Doctors are so overrun in their clinics, especially in some suburban areas. This particular clinic in my electorate is continually packed. It is in a low-income area that has lots of migrants. The doctors are so overworked in this clinic; there is a continuous line-up. When I speak to my doctor about it and I say, ‘You are so busy,’ he says to me, ‘How can we turn people away?’ They bulk-bill, of course. So this is another area that we must tackle: the ability of doctors, health workers and nurses to provide the services that we as a community demand. How do we do this? When we talk about preventative health, we are talking not only about preventing lifestyle illnesses and diseases but also about being able to access health services where you can have check-ups at an early stage to ensure that illnesses are detected and you can be helped before it is too late. That addresses two issues: firstly, it is detrimental to your health not to act early and, secondly, it is costly because the costs escalate.

If we can make opportunities for people to access doctors, to access services were they can have check-ups—for instance, where you can check your diabetes, your blood sugar level, and where blokes can check their prostate. I was interested to hear when I attended the launch of the prostate foundation’s Prostate Awareness Month last month that the earlier you can get in for a check-up, the earlier you diagnose it, the higher the likelihood there is of you surviving prostate cancer. That means you survive it: you have treatment early and the costs are low. If you let it go, you will not survive it and the costs will escalate as well. These are the areas that we must tackle, and I am glad to see that this government has taken the initiative to tackle this area. When you speak to all of the experts, they are saying that preventative health is the way we must go. When I speak to my local doctor, he says the same thing. When we spoke to professors and to the many learned people who appeared before the inquiry that we had into obesity, they also had the same view that that was the way we should all be heading. As I said, prevention is better than looking for the diagnosis after you have the illness. I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context