Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity today to make a contribution on the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. There is a lot to be said for all of us in this country realising that we hold our own health situation in the palms of our hands. So many of us, if we really look at the opportunities we have around us, would realise that we do not need a gym to make an impact on our personal health. We do not need to pay $1,000 for six months gym membership to do something for ourselves. A lot of preventative health is all about taking personal responsibility. Indeed, as we grow up, we have those opportunities held out in front of us, whether it is the football, in the case of a lot of young blokes at primary and secondary school, or whether it is netball for the girls, or maybe, beyond that, less traditional sports. They are out there. At the school level, children can choose to participate; there are very few limitations on them participating. Of course, if they want to go beyond that and participate in sport at the club level, then that does come down to parents being behind them as well.

A lot of parents do support their children. They realise that they have a responsibility to make sure their children are growing up with the right attitude towards their own health. That is why, on Saturday mornings or Wednesday afternoons, depending on the time of the year, we often see up in Kingsway sporting complex the Wanneroo Districts Netball Association, with well over 1,000 players participating. I commend all of those young people, and not quite so young people, who participate, whether it is as a member of a team or whether is in some other capacity—coaching, supporting sport or the administration of the association. I have spoken on the Wanneroo Districts Netball Association before. But I also commend the parents who want to set that good example for their children by making it easy for them to participate by driving them and, where possible, walking to the Kingsway sporting complex. That is very good.

But, as I said before, we do not necessarily need to have a club to participate in sport, to look after ourselves. I will not go to the point of delivering some sermon because I know I have a few skeletons in the closet of my personal health, but it is the responsibility of all of us to look in the mirror each day and say: ‘Well, am I doing all I can? Am I being the best person I can be? Am I making the effort to look after myself?’ Our children see what we are doing to ourselves as well, whether it is alcohol abuse, drug abuse or abuse of fast food. Although I turned from the path of my personal self-destruction, which is hot chips, about 15 years ago, I admit that about once a year I might go to Hungry Jack’s for a whopper.

Indeed, my children do seem to be quite fond of fried chips. I guess when you are younger you have more of a capacity to burn off these things. But what I would always say is that no life should be based upon the consumption of fast food. It always worries me when I see people who look like they should be avoiding fast food making their way to KFC, Hungry Jack’s—over in Perth, particularly Hungry Jack’s—McDonald’s or one of those other outlets. Again, it comes down to personal responsibility and parents showing the leadership in their household that they should not make hot chips or fried chicken or hamburgers a staple of everyday sustenance. That should never be the case.

I spoke before about netball as an excellent local sport and an excellent local option for young people within the electorate of Cowan. I have also spoken before about the number of Little Athletics clubs we have within Cowan; indeed, I am sure all members of this House have Little Athletics clubs in their electorates. As we would know, Little Athletics is one of those organisations where the parents are most certainly involved not just in transporting their children to training sessions and competitions on Saturdays but also there is a great deal of parental participation in making sure these clubs are running, whether it is as timekeepers or equipment managers. There are roles for just about all parents.

I believe so strongly in junior sport that I—and probably other members as well—sponsor my own interschool basketball competition, where I try to bring together schools that would not normally associate with each other, because they are 10 suburbs apart or that sort of limitation, and have them come to a local sporting complex for a bit of a round robin event. It is lots of good fun. We are about to do the second one in November—not very far away—and I am certainly looking forward to that.

One of the things I like about junior sport is that it gives children not just the fitness aspects of the sport but so often it is about teamwork, dedication and thinking about other people apart from yourself. I also like it because it tends to limit the independence that so many children seem to have forced upon them these days. What I mean by that, to be absolutely clear, is that if a 16-year-old who has social demands upon them—whether it is, sadly, underage drinking or other bad things, or whether it is basically not having a great deal of direction just by associating with friends—and you can maintain reliance between a young person and a parent, as in, ‘I need you mum or dad to drive me to training or to drive me to the game,’ that is an extremely positive thing. That keeps open a line of communication between young people and parents and that is an entirely positive thing. Of course, as we know, if we set the right examples for young people and promote junior sport as well, we would imagine that children will have a pretty good chance of growing up with the capacity to make the right decisions and to lead the good lifestyle that the parents have demonstrated to them and they will enjoy better success in the future as a result.

Some years ago I was working in the Army not too far from here, down at Weston Creek, which was at that time called the Australian College of Defence and Strategic Studies. As a captain I was a very junior officer compared to the other participants, as they were called there, who were one-stars, brigadiers and above, as well as some from overseas. There was the occasional SES-grade public servant, but participants were predominantly Australian Army, Navy or Air Force. I remember one of the PTIs, the physical training instructors, came to the gym to instruct the senior officers in the safe use of the gym, and he said to them, and I took this on board as well: ‘If you do a thousand push-ups a day you’ll have a fabulous set of stomach muscles; but if you don’t change your lifestyle, if you don’t reduce the amount of food you take in, then you might have a fabulous set of muscles but they’ll be under quite a deal of fat.’

When we talk about the gym or exercise of any kind, the reality is that, particularly when you are pushing 45 like me, you need to make those other choices that are not quite as much fun, like using the treadmill or the cross-trainer in the gym downstairs, where you can watch TV. I watch the news, of course, to keep up to date with events—nothing that entertaining. You have to make those hard decisions with your life. As much as I would like to turn away from ice cream, bread and butter, and things like that, I have not yet crossed that line. But about 15 years ago, realising I had a form of addiction, I decided that my daily intake of hot chips was not going to serve me well in the future and so I stopped. It was a bit hard and, whenever my kids are sitting there with their hot chips or in the back of the car with their hot chips, there is occasionally a little sense of envy. But I have turned from that path of self-destruction!

As I said before, when we look in the mirror and see that maybe the sixpack is not there anymore—not even close to it—or we are looking a bit heavy, we have got to start looking at the bad choices we are making as individuals. While I agree that government has a part to play and preventative programs have a part to play, first and foremost we as individuals and adults need to make those hard decisions ourselves. In particular, as parents we need to set good examples in the responsible consumption of alcohol, which other members have referred to, no use of illicit drugs whatsoever—and I condemn that outright—and, above all, the case of food. We must make sure that we make the lifestyle choices which give us a chance, because we do have a responsibility. We assume a certain right to access the health system in this country, but as with all rights there are responsibilities. We need to acknowledge that we should not place undue pressure on the health system with diseases caused by self-abuse, as in putting on too much weight.

To move on to something a little bit more controversial, some years ago—I have not seen too much of it lately—there was a lot of discussion about self-image and body image and the fact that it was bad to tell young people in particular that they were overweight. I would never say that as parents we should be saying to our daughters, ‘You’re fat; lose some weight.’ There are ways to say these things properly. But we should also never walk away from that responsibility. I have two daughters; that is why I am giving this example. If I thought that one of my daughters was putting on a little bit of weight then I would address that without making that outright statement, which would be seen as negative. We should never run away from the fact that these discussions need to be had, because, again, it comes down to our responsibilities as parents. No-one has a right to weigh down the system just because they have no self-control.

Moving on, recently we received some knowledge about the Active After-school Communities program. All members were invited to participate in that program. As it is my second year in this place, I looked forward to doing that. Unfortunately, in the first year I managed to tear a ligament in my knee on the first day that I went along to one of those programs, at Landsdale Primary School in the electorate of Cowan. I did a bit of damage. I would like to say that it was from doing something dramatic, but I am afraid it was not doing anything dramatic apart from picking up a ball, which reminds me that I am getting on a bit at the age of 44. This year I went along to Landsdale Primary School, St Stephen’s School in Karama and also the Landsdale Gardens Adventist School. The kids do a great job in participating and the staff of the department in the region, away from Canberra, do a great job of promoting healthy lifestyles. This year it was skipping, to see how many millions of skips everyone could do; last year they did paces, with the aim of ‘pacing to Beijing’. There are schools doing a good job, as other members have said as well. One of the schools in my area, Hawker Park Primary School, has the Big Friendly Garden, where all the kids participate in growing and eating nutritious food. Basically, they try to back up parents with good and healthy choices about food.

I have taken up a fair amount of time in this place today, so I finish by saying there is a lot to be said about preventative action with regard to health and there is a lot to be said about programs provided by government to lighten the load on the health system in this country. At the same time, there is no substitute for introspection—the look in the mirror that we all need to do to assess whether we are doing ourselves some damage or whether there are things that we can do better in order to be a healthier person and then set the right example for our children. That is a responsibility of being a parent. Across this country, every citizen has the responsibility to take that action and make sure that they are doing the best job and not just relying on the health system to make up for the indulgences that we gave ourselves in the past.

I have some distance to go myself in this matter. While I now like to lift weights at the gym and do cross-training, I could always do more. Probably all of us here could do more. It is important that we in this place set examples, as well as in our capacities as parents. At least as community leaders, in a way, across this country, we should be setting a good example. I will try to do better myself in the future.

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