Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

In the Holroyd local council area—a council area which I share with the member for Greenway—19 per cent of residents are obese, 52 per cent are overweight or obese and 10 per cent have diabetes. They are also part of the wider Western Sydney community, where people present with heart attacks on average 10 years earlier than the rest of Sydney.

It is because of figures such as these that the Labor government and the states came together to form the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health to start work to ensure people stay healthy rather than continuing along this path toward very poor health. The Healthy Communities initiative, which funded $703,607 to the Holroyd City Council to support physical activity and healthy eating programs, was part of that important agreement. Unfortunately, as in so many other valuable programs, the current government has abolished this agreement by the end of the year, and that program will cease.

This is a visionless act that believes you can reduce the health costs in the long run by cutting programs that keep people at risk of very poor health staying healthy. It is an act without vision and incredibly short-sighted. This program includes free and low-cost exercise programs, cooking classes and nutrition talks in a number of languages, including community speaking languages such as Arabic and Dinka, and training bilingual fitness instructors. I urge the government to rethink this appalling act.

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