Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise today to introduce the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Healthy Kids Advertising) Bill 2024.

The aim of this bill is to reduce the amount of junk food marketing that children are exposed to.

Australia, like many other developed nations, is facing an obesity epidemic.

This in turn is causing Australians to develop type 2 diabetes mellitus at rates never before seen and at younger and younger ages. Currently, 1.3 million Australians are living with type 2 diabetes, a deadly yet preventable disease.

Two-thirds of adult Australians and one-quarter of our children are above the healthy weight range. These figures are even higher in regional Australia and amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and other minority communities.

This is a problem because obesity is a major cause of not only type 2 diabetes but many other chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, dementia and some types of cancer.

Diabetes in turn can cause blindness, kidney failure and amputations.

And, according to the National Obesity Strategy, obesity costs Australia nearly $12 billion a year.

With such a high proportion of our population affected and with rates growing so rapidly we know quite clearly that obesity is a societal problem requiring a societal response.

It is not, as the junk food and advertising companies would have us believe, the fault of the individual.

Instead, at the heart of the problem is the obesogenic environment that we live in.

And a very critical part of the obesogenic environment is the constant junk food marketing that we are exposed to.

Australian children see at least 15 ads for unhealthy food every day.

They see junk food ads when they watch the telly with their family, they hear them on the radio in the car on the way to school and they are deluged with unhealthy food ads in their bedrooms whenever they are on social media or online.

And research does show that there is a direct link between unhealthy food ads, the dietary decisions of children and families and childhood obesity. And yet in Australia the average child aged five to eight years old is exposed to more than 820 unhealthy food advertisements on TV alone every year.

Children are also seeing at least 100 junk food ads and promotions online every week.

Powerful social media algorithms are used to individually target our children.

Their online activity is mined, thousands of 'interest labels' are attached to them, and this information is onsold to thousands of companies. Susceptible people, particularly children, are identified, and then they are served up these harmful ads relentlessly.

Simply put, our children are being preyed upon by companies that seek to profit at the expense of their health.

So what can be done?

Already more than 40 countries around the world, including the UK, Ireland, Chile and Norway, have restricted or are planning to restrict junk food marketing on TV, radio and online, with positive results.

In the UK, a ban on junk food adverts being shown on TV before 9 pm will come into force on 1 October next year. This will occur alongside a total ban on paid-for online adverts. Both measures are aimed at tackling childhood obesity.

My healthy kids advertising bill is similar to this.

I'm proposing an amendment to the Broadcasting Services Act.

The objective of the healthy kids advertising bill is to protect our greatest resource—our children—from the harmful impacts of junk food advertising. This bill is not about telling people what they can and can't buy or eat. It's about creating environments that support our kids' health as they live, play and learn.

If implemented my bill would restrict junk food advertising from appearing on TV, radio and streaming services between the family viewing hours of 6 am and 9.30 pm. It would also introduce an end to all paid junk food marketing on social media and other online environments.

Under the terms of my bill, 'unhealthy food' is defined as food and drink not recommended for promotion to children in the 2018 guide published by the health council of COAG.

Under the regulations, substantial fines would be imposed on broadcasters, internet service providers, and food companies that fail to adhere to the guidelines.

It's important to note that this bill is just one part of a suite of measures that are needed to tackle the obesity and diabetes epidemics facing our nation.

The National Obesity Strategy, the National Preventive Health Strategy, and the National Diabetes Strategy all recommend that the Australian government introduce broad marketing restrictions on unhealthy food.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport reported on its inquiry into the state of diabetes mellitus in Australia this year. It too recommended restrictions on junk food advertising.

Our government has a duty to protect Australian children, and the obesity epidemic is the major preventable public health challenge of our times.

With millions of Australian children already on track for a lifetime of chronic disease, it's well over time for this parliament to act.

I urge all members of the House to step up and give our children the chance to live a healthy life by backing in this healthy kids advertising bill.

I would like to cede the rest of my time to the member for Kooyong.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I also support the member for Mackellar's bill, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Healthy Kids Advertising) Bill 2024, to prohibit the advertising of junk food to Australian children.

Today's children consume multiple types of media, often simultaneously. Some spend more time in front of computer, television and game screens than in any other activity other than sleeping. It's extraordinary. Twenty-four per cent of Australian children spend more than 20 hours a week watching TV or online.

Most children aged less than six can't distinguish between programming and advertising. Advertising directed at children this young is by its very nature inevitably exploitative.

Children have a remarkable ability to recall the content of the advertising that they see. They develop product preferences after as little as a single exposure to one ad. This strengthens, though, with repeated exposures. Ads affect what kids ask their parents to buy. They affect what we buy our children.

Some of our children are seeing as many as 170 junk food advertisements every week on TV, or hearing them on the radio or seeing them online, and they do pay attention to them. Online advertisers use algorithmic networks to create a sense of community, engagement, fun and friendship related to junk food advertising. Then they add scarcity marketing, which generates a fear of missing out.

We don't allow tobacco or vape advertising, but we allow our children to be exposed every day to repeated advertising for addictive and harmful products which increase their risk of obesity and childhood-onset diabetes. As the member for Mackellar has already noted—and as a member of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, which has recently called on the government to outlaw food advertising—we have to act to protect our children. They are our most precious natural resource.

In my previous career as a paediatrician, I promised to first do no harm. As a politician, it is again my duty to act in the very best interests of my constituents—all of my constituents. This bill will protect our children from harm, and therefore I commend it to the House.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.