Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 5248:

(1)    Page 92 (after line 6), at the end of the bill, add:

Schedule 4—Amendment of the Children’s Television Standards

Children’s Television Standards 2005

1  At the end of CTS 10

Add:

; (e)    advertise food or beverages unless the Minister for Health, having determined that such an advertisement is beneficial to the health of children, allows such an advertisement.

This is about putting in place a schedule at the end of Children’s Television Standard 10. I point out that standard 10 is about material that is unsuitable for broadcasting during a C period or a P period. It includes demeaning any people or group on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual preferences, religion or mental or physical ability. There is an extensive list. What the Greens seek to do is to add a standard that relates to the advertising of food and beverages.

As I articulated in my second reading contribution, the Greens are extremely concerned about the increasing epidemic of obesity in Australia. Ninety per cent of the money spent on food advertising, which in 2004 was $410 million, was spent on fast food, chips, lollies, soft drinks and ice-cream. Only about one per cent could be specifically identified as having been spent on healthy food. Before we start talking about whether this is putting in place a nanny state, people should bear in mind that we do ban other advertising—cigarettes being the classic example. In places overseas, measures such as this have been adopted.

The government may argue: ‘Why put this in place? People do not pay attention to ads.’ Our argument is: ‘Why does the government spend so much money on advertising? Advertisers spend close to 70 times more money on food ads than the government spends on promoting healthy lifestyles.’ We believe that the advertising of junk food is deliberately targeted at young children in prime television time, and it is directly related to the increase in obesity. We believe that it is about time that action was taken to restrict the time that these sorts of advertisements can be shown on Australian television. We therefore move this amendment to put some control on the time that junk food can be advertised. This should be part of a package of materials, such as appropriate labelling and those sorts of things, but we believe this amendment would go a long way to addressing how these advertisements directly address children.

As a parent, you can exercise as much control as you like, but it is still undermined by the material being advertised on television. Having gone around shopping centres for years with my son and being nagged—and now I am doing it with my nieces and nephews—I can tell you that the power of television advertising of junk food is immense. No matter what you say in the middle of a supermarket to a screaming toddler—and some of them are a bit bigger than that—it is very difficult. I believe this measure is essential if we are to address the epidemic that we face in this country.