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

and you are dipping out of your responsibilities, Senator, by being unable to come up with a solution—which is what the Greens have brought forward here today. I do not treat this with the mirth that you do.

Let me say this again: we have a government which keeps beating its chest about looking after families and being concerned about children, but it seems to me this government is putting more effort into designing the history that those children will learn at school—important though that is—than into their health and their ability to have long, happy, healthy lives by escaping the trap of obesity.

I reiterate that we have a $35 million a year plan from the government—for spending on advertising—and an $11 billion a year problem. That seems to me to be a $10,965 million a year deficit in terms of the balance that the government should be striking. The government has not acted responsibly in this matter. To turn down these amendments today in the way they have been turned down by the other parties in the Senate—I find that incomprehensible.