Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It would want to be evidence based? That is a good contribution from Senator McLucas! The strategy would be released next year. I want to say on the record that a do-nothing approach is not an option. We need action and we need it now. Let us go through the various options in terms of what should be done and say that we cannot wait. First of all, I call on the Prime Minister as a matter of urgency to convene the key stakeholders involved in the obesity epidemic. I call on him to convene them, with the support of the minister for health, in the knowledge that this is a whole-of-government problem and a whole-of-government approach is required. We are talking about the ministers for health, sport, industry. Different aspects of the obesity epidemic impact on different parts of our lives, so the Prime Minister should convene an urgent meeting of the key stakeholders to address this obesity epidemic. A do-nothing approach is not an option.

In 2006 a report by Access Economics was released at my sixth Healthy Lifestyle Forum to help combat childhood obesity. I congratulate the author of the report and the lead consultant, Lynne Pezzullo, for her excellent work in pulling it together. That report was commissioned by Diabetes Australia, and I commend Diabetes Australia and particularly Matt O’Brien for his work and his advocacy in supporting healthy lifestyles throughout this country. The report said that obesity was already costing Australians $3.767 billion in direct costs each year, or $21 billion a year after including factors such as loss of wellbeing through premature death and disability. This is not good enough. This requires a call to arms. It is a wake-up call like we have never seen before. As I say, I have had eight Healthy Lifestyle Forums since 2002, when I entered the Senate, to try and highlight this issue and require and look at options for reform.

I released a 10-point plan for a healthier Australia in 2006 and I think it is still relevant. The first point classified obesity as a national health priority, which has occurred—and that is good news. I also recommended applying a Medicare rebate for obesity consultations to allow those who have this condition—and we found out last Friday, according to this report, that there are some four million adult Australians in this condition—to go to their GP, and the GP can prescribe not just a drug but also a lifestyle prescription to say, ‘Listen, regular exercise and a healthy diet is the way to go.’ In a way it is a simple solution, but in a way it is a complex one because it requires a change of behaviour, a change in attitude, a change of lifestyle. It is not so easy because we have habits, and they are hard to kick.

The Prime Minister should establish a healthy lifestyle commission, reporting directly to the office of the Prime Minister. We cannot just put this in silos and think this is just a health issue. As we can see from the cost of obesity, it is more than that. It affects the economy. It affects industry. It affects our productivity. It affects so many aspects of our lives. Look at the education system and our kids. We want the best for our kids in Australia, and at the moment that is not happening. The Active After-schools Communities program should be extended to reach all school-age children. I commend the former Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator Rod Kemp, for his advocacy and strong support for that program, for first of all getting it started and then extending it through the schools that receive it. Most senators and members in this place would know that it is a very successful program and well received. We want our children in schools to be healthy and active and playing sport not only during school but also after school. Why have all these facilities there in the middle of our towns and cities all around Australia unused after school? They should be used, and we can encourage further use by our children. The government should also extend its $1,500 Healthy School Communities program to annual funding.

School canteens is a very important area. It leads to the next point of the 10-point plan, which is to allow only healthy food to be sold through school canteens and provided at childcare centres, including a ban on sugary and fizzy drinks. Children should only have healthy choices in schools, not unhealthy choices—not Coke, not Fanta, not the sugary, fizzy drinks. They should be removed entirely from primary schools, and certainly from junior secondary schools, so that children do not have that choice.

We know from the statistics that Singapore is one of the few countries in the world that have successfully defeated the childhood obesity epidemic. Their figures have actually gone down, not up. Australia is going up and up still more, as was seen in last week’s report. We are now the fattest nation on earth, according to this report. This is not a happy record for Australia, by any means. To think that we are outweighing the Americans—and indeed the UK and Mexico—almost beggars belief. We were in the top four. It seems that now, based on this report, we are the top one. But it does not matter whether we are the top one or in the top two, three or four. It is not a good record, and we could do a lot better. We need those urgent meetings of the key stakeholders to be convened to come up with solutions.

We need the tuckshops and the school environment to be healthy environments. In that respect, annually benchmarking children’s health and fitness should occur, in the same way we benchmark literacy and numeracy. That has been happening for years now with literacy and numeracy. We think it is a good idea. Surely our children’s health and fitness are important enough to require benchmarking, so the results can go home to their parents, their guardians and their loved ones, and it can be done in a sensitive and appropriate manner. Whether it is a BMI check and some other health and fitness regimes remains to be seen. Let us get the experts to decide. I know Robert de Castella, who is here in the ACT. He is a wonderful advocate for this regime. He has been working successfully for years here and in other parts of Australia. I commend the Robert de Castella program to the government. There are other programs all around Australia, but I know that Robert de Castella’s works well.

I still support adopting 2010 as a target for halting the rise in obesity and adopting 2015 as the target for halving obesity in children. It can be done. Where there is a will, there is a way. We need the political will to make it happen. I call on the Prime Minister to exercise that political will.

Another area of action is No. 9 in the 10-point plan: frame new food-labelling regulations to outlaw claims such as 98 per cent fat-free and help consumers tell at a glance which products are healthy. These claims need to be honest and truthful and they need to be designed in such a way as to help consumers tell at a glance which products are healthy and which are not.

Finally, No. 10 in the 10-point plan is to increase funding for participation in local sport and recreational activity. As I said earlier, regular exercise is part of the answer. If we can provide funding at different levels of government—federal, state and local—to encourage more physical activity, whether it be sport or recreational activity it does not really matter, then that is certainly the way to go. I note that the former government, the Howard government, did provide significant funding for research and development to the food sector for making products healthier and for research into this issue in general.

I also have a view that bariatric surgery and lap band surgery should be supported, not just from time to time by some hospitals across the country. It should be supported wherever possible in the public hospital system because it works. Some people are very dismissive of bariatric surgery and lap band surgery, but the facts do speak for themselves—res ipsa loquitur—and I would encourage anybody to look at the facts in terms of that. There are some risks involved, and that needs to be acknowledged, but it does provide a better health outcome for those who undergo such surgery.

I want to commend at this point the work of Professor Paul Zimmet, who is a leading expert from the International Diabetes Institute based in Melbourne. He has been a keynote speaker at many of my forums and will be a keynote speaker at my next forum on Friday, 22 August in Hobart. It is a great honour to have him speak at such a forum. He will be expressing his views and his concerns and also his suggestions on the way forward. Professor Jennie Brand-Miller from the University of Sydney, a former President of Nutrition Australia and author of many books and publications on the GI factor and nutrition activities, and Karena Brown, a childcare operator and an outstanding citizen from Burnie in Tasmania, will also be at the Hobart forum. The chief convenor will be Dr Michael Aizen, a former President of the AMA. He will be supported on the convening committee by Jenny Branch, who is President of the Tasmanian Parents and Friends Association; James Walker, a podiatrist from Hobart; and Chris Rennie, a rural health nurse in southern Tasmania. It is a great honour to be working with these wonderful Tasmanians to help combat the obesity epidemic. I do want to congratulate the Mercury newspaper for their leadership and their advocacy in tackling this issue. They do see it as a concern and they have taken it up as something that needs defeating. I say thank you and well done to the Mercury for what they are doing to make a difference.

In terms of Tasmania, Premier Bartlett should convene an urgent meeting with key stakeholders in that state to tackle the obesity epidemic because, sadly, Tasmania is the worst of the worst. We have a gold medal in Australia for being the fattest nation on earth, according to this report, and Tasmania has the highest rates of diabetes in Australia. On the north-west coast in particular we have the highest rates across the country, outside of our Indigenous communities, and we have amongst the highest rates of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. So Tasmania does not have a good record. I would certainly call on Premier Bartlett to act and act swiftly. I thank the Senate.