Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What lot of weak-kneed responses we have just heard to this Greens amendment, which is serious about banning junk food ads being pushed at kids. It might be amusing to other members of this place but it is not amusing to me. It is fatuous for Labor, Democrats and the coalition to be getting up and saying, ‘We have got plans further down the line.’ It began with Senator Murray saying that Senator Allison is preparing a bill. Get that onto the schedule in this place where the government is in control, if you don’t mind. Here we have an amendment to a government piece of legislation which has to be dealt with by the Senate today. It is on schedule; it is required to be dealt with; it cannot be blocked by the government; it is very simple; it is aimed straight at the junk food purveyors—and the Democrats say, ‘No, not us.’

Labor says that it is populist. Surely, it is. People are worried about obesity and about junk food being pushed through the TV sets at our kids. What is Labor doing about it? Nothing. There is no alternative that is going to have real teeth in this place in the foreseeable future. The minister says, ‘Oh well, we have got plans.’ I challenged her with the hard options that Mr Abbott was talking about. What are they? Nothing—zero—simply talk! She points to what she sees as a technical problem and the other members say, ‘We cannot load Tony Abbott with the problem of having to decide what a healthy food product is when it is advertised on television.’ Sure, we can regulate violence and pornography in children’s television viewing hours but we cannot do it with food. Suddenly the government cannot come up with a process which would inform it correctly on what is a healthy food for children. That is arrant nonsense!

Of course the minister is not going to make a subjective judgement about this, as Senator Murray said. The minister will make an objective judgement based on information coming from experts—and they are plentiful. I suggest that he put through a call to Dr Rosemary Stanton, who has been addressing this issue since I was a medical student—and I do not want to impugn her in any way there. There are many experts in our community who have been speaking out about this for decades now and they have not been heard. I for one feel embarrassed that I have not acted on this earlier in this place. But when you do get it to an action point and a very simple and sensible amendment like this which says, ‘Don’t ban healthy foods being given advertising time to Australian children,’ Labor and the Democrats say that it is too difficult. What nonsense! What stupidity that is. Where is the alternative?