Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that the member for Shortland has brought this important motion to the House tonight. People may think that it is flippant and silly matter but it is not. A beauty pageant caused an absolute outrage in Melbourne and I do not want to see the growth in my society of toddlers in tiaras and baby beauty queens and contests. The organisers of the contest that sparked the controversy and that was probably the genesis of this motion before us tonight said that there was great interest and that people wanted to be there and that it was about giving children confidence in growing up. No, it is not. As we heard earlier during the debate on the motion about the sexualisation of children, this is making our children grow up too soon. We are not even talking about teenagers; these are tots. They are between nought and three years old, and people are dressing them up as adults. They are making them sexual beings; they are putting on make-up. If any of you has had the pleasure or the horror of watching Toddlers and TiarasI have not, but I have had lots of reports from my children—there is an infamous scene where a child is done up as Dolly Parton: she has got the fake boobs, the fake bum and the full make-up. She is three years of age. What is this telling our children about how they present themselves to society? Dolly Parton should be a role model for women, in so far as she is actually a fairly fierce independent woman who has made her way in society. Instead, they are portraying her as all about image. That is where it is really wrong. As the organiser of the quest that came to Melbourne from America but did not happen, says, and I quote from the newspaper article:

Ms Hill says Australians need not fear her. They think we're going to bring the flippers (fake toddler teeth)—

So that they have the big teeth you are meant to have to look beautiful—

and the over-the-top tans and the big hair. You know, Australia has so many beautiful contestants.

I do not want my children to think that you are judged by your beauty, that that is the mark you make in the world. That is what these contests are doing. It is interesting to read that, quoting from another newspaper article in respect of this contest:

Photo categories include natural (no make-up), glamour (make-up allowed) and a fun photo.

Children will also perform a talent routine, such as dancing or singing.

In the formal gown section, children over three will be judged on public speaking, sincerity and confidence.

Family psychologist Andrew Fuller said pageants could lead to competition, anxiety and embarrassment.

"This is a good recipe for how to predispose your daughter into having an eating disorder," he said.

"The risk is that they suddenly fear that their body shape is more important than their intellect."

Psychologist Dr Janet Hall said pageants taught children that looks were more important than a good heart.

"It makes a competition out of being more grown up than you are," she said.

That is the issue. I have spoken often in this place about the scourge of body image. It is the No. 1 that children and young adults have cited in a national survey done by Mission Australia for the last several years—the No. 1 issue of concern. When you think about all that is going on in this world for our young people, originally it was just girls, now it is girls and boys, the No. 1 issue is body image. These pageants are instilling it not just in our teenagers but now in our tots. I despair that mothers—and it is a gross rationalisation, I do realise—are living their lives through their children, doing them up and trotting them out in this thing without thinking about the consequences and the impact it has. Another article of the time read:

Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists have backed calls for child beauty pageants to be banned, saying they encourage the sexualisation of children and can cause developmental harm.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists says American-style pageants, like the one slated for July in Melbourne, promote an adult's perception of "beauty".

When asked if they backed a ban of the competitions, chair of the college Phillip Brock told AAP: "Yes we do. We're giving these kids messages that how they appear, how they perform and standards about what they're to come up to is actually more important than what they're like inside," he said.

That is the issue. I am proud to be part of a government that has heard the issue about body image, that is putting money towards establishing fora to develop voluntary codes for the industry about how models look and that is doing more in the space of sexualisation. But allowing this pageantry to creep into our society, which is just so—and I hate this terminology—un-Australian. I just do not see it; I do not want it. I think we need to recognise that it is not just a bit of fun, it is actually quite harmful and it is actually quite damaging. Children need to be children. We need to allow them that space. These pageants should be banned.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion on beauty pageants that appears on the Notice Paper under my name. This follows on very nicely from the motion we debated earlier about the sexualisation and commercialisation of children. This is a prime example of how young children are sexualised and commercialised. The impact this has on them in later years is as yet unmeasured. It has the potential to have a negative impact on child development, and many authorities have stated this fact.

One of the catalysts for my putting this motion on the Notice Paper was a discussion I heard on the ABC when I was coming home from parliament one night. A psychologist was talking about the impact these beauty pageants would have on young girls' lives. He said if he was interested in growing his business he would be advocating in favour of these beauty pageants because what they do, as the previous speaker said, is create the negative body images and self-esteem issues that can really affect a young person's wellbeing, confidence and overall quality of life and lead to serious problems such as ill health, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, self-harm and social isolation—all things that revolve around body image. As the previous speaker stated, the No. 1 issue for young people is body image.

I have done quite a bit of research on these beauty pageants. There are examples of young girls screaming in terror as their mothers approach them with spray cans. There are some three million children competing in American pageants every year, most of them girls aged between six months—in some reports, as young as two months—and 16 years. They compete locally and nationally, with themes such as swimwear, talent, evening wear and themed costumes. They are creating an unreal image of what a child should be and what a young girl should be. Young girls should be involved in sport or all the activities that growing young children should be involved in. It cannot be good for young kids to be involved in these pageants. I think the cost will be seen in years to come.

I referred to a paper that was done on child beauty pageant contestants associated with eating and mental health disorders. The lead researcher on that paper was Anna L. Wonderlich. The paper showed that results from surveys indicated that women who participated in childhood pageants scored significantly higher on measures of body dissatisfaction. No matter how thin they were, no matter how perfect their body was, it was still not good enough. Interpersonal distrust and impulse dysregulation were higher than in other women who did not participate in childhood beauty pageants. There was also a trend for childhood beauty pageant participants to report greater feelings of ineffectiveness than nonparticipants. A number of other findings are highlighted in this paper, which shows that even the competitiveness and ranking of individuals lead to problems for young people in the future.

I have no hesitation in saying that we need to look at this issue. We do not need this in Australia. There are real concerns around beauty pageants that involve young people, some as young as two months old. It is not good enough. We cannot allow it to continue.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should have said at the outset that I want to thank the member for Shortland for bringing the motion before the House. I call the member for La Trobe.

Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this motion moved by the member for Shortland. It follows on from the earlier motion on the sexualisation and commercialisation of children. They are incredibly important issues, and they certainly are important to constituents in my electorate who have raised them with me, including specifically the circumstances of the beauty pageant that was held in Melbourne last year—and that has already been noted by the member for Chisholm during the course of this debate. Certainly it caused concern for the parents of a lot of young children within my own electorate; the parents went along and voiced their concerns on the day and expressed their views in the media.

I know that this debate raises questions about parental responsibility and what each individual parent, carer or responsible adult sees for their own child, but it is an incredibly important issue for the broader society and it is appropriate that we raise it in this place and escalate it to a matter of importance that we consider here, because it is certainly not an issue about prudishness. It is an issue about the exploitation or potential exploitation of very young children who really do not have the capacity to express their own views about what happens to them on a day-to-day basis or about whether or not they will compete in these events. I know that we encourage competition amongst children in a range of areas, but this is a matter which is not about any usual competition. It is a matter which bases competition only on one's appearance and cosmetic issues.

I know that children's beauty pageants have attracted quite a lot of media attention. They certainly did in Melbourne during the course of the last year. The reason for that is the potential for negative body image arising amongst those children who compete and amongst children who observe these competitions taking place. The reason why that is so important and has been the subject of comment by government, and a range of bodies set up by and in conjunction with government, is that they are amongst the key issues that are raised by our young people themselves.

There is a wealth of evidence, and I cited some of it during the earlier debate today, on the sexualisation and commercialisation of children and young people. I would mention a couple of figures that I found quite extraordinary. I know that the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders has published a few statistics about children and body image and research that has been undertaken relatively recently. It describes a survey of pre-adolescent Sydney children and notes that 50 per cent of primary school children surveyed wanted to weigh less and 25 per cent of seven- to 10-year-olds have dieted to lose weight. I found that quite extraordinary. I also found extraordinary the comments in an international study which was documented in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology in December 2010. It noted that half of the participants aged between three and six years were worried about their weight. It says:

Although nearly all girls liked the way they looked, self-report data indicated that nearly one-third of the participants would change something about their physical appearance and nearly half of the girls worried about being fat.

That is really quite an extraordinary occurrence in relation to children of that age, so it is appropriate that this evening, and through governmental policy and governmental action, this broad issue of body image has been escalated to an issue of national concern.

I would say in relation to that that the Commonwealth government has made a commitment to taking action on body image, and that led to the establishment in 2009 of a National Advisory Group on Body Image, which consists of representatives from the health sector, young people, NGOs and academia. It had a significant role in providing advice and recommendations on how best to tackle this very challenging issue. I know that there has been a significant effort put in by the Commonwealth government in response to the issues raised by that group.

I must say that, despite the significance of this issue, I am somewhat disappointed that it is solely members of the government who have chosen to comment on it and contribute to debate on this issue this evening. I would hope, given the apparent interest in this issue that was raised in the earlier motion today, that there might be more comment on this matter in future from members of the opposition.

Debate adjourned.