Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2008 with a slightly alternative perspective from most of the speakers who have gone before me. Most of those speakers, as is frequently the custom with private members’ bills, have argued against the passage of the bill, but most have come from the same direction—talking about the need for greater regulation, the need for greater government control over areas such as food advertising. I speak from a different perspective today because I think this notion needs to be challenged head-on.

I know that this bill, coming from the Greens, and the views of my colleagues who have spoken today all come with the best of intentions. They all come with the best of intentions and concerns about what is an increasing health problem. Obesity across Australia, as it is across the Western world, is an increasing health problem and childhood obesity has followed that trend as an increasing health problem. Whilst I acknowledge those best intentions, the path to hell, as the cliche goes, is paved with good intentions. So whilst I know these are good intentions, I really do bring strong concerns about those who seek to turn to regulation and legislation every time they have a concern about where society is heading.

In this place we have immense power which we should all reflect upon and remind ourselves of occasionally. We have immense power to legislate and regulate virtually every aspect of people’s lives. We tax them and we require them to adhere to all sorts of laws, and our state parliaments and local governments around the country do likewise. These are immense powers to influence what people see, what they hear and what they do, and these powers need to be exercised judiciously, carefully, thoughtfully. Legislative control of people’s lives should be the last resort for this place—the last resort rather than the first retort. Unfortunately, too often nowadays people turn to legislation, government intervention and government interference as the first option.

The placement of advertisements on television, or what we see on television, should not be an area for major or enormous government legislative activity. It should not be a subject that this place spends many hours debating and legislating on. We should not necessarily expect government to control everything that people see or hear in their day-to-day lives. On this I think there is some level of hypocrisy with the Australian Greens putting forward this legislation. I have been quite heartened in working alongside Senator Ludlam on the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts, questioning the validity of the Rudd government’s approach to internet filtering: the need for compulsory internet filters and mandatory ISP filtering. In that process the Greens have stood up for the notion that such government intervention in what people see and do is wrong. They have stood up for it when it comes to the internet, yet here we have a private member’s bill from the Leader of the Australian Greens trying to further regulate in a different media, a different forum, what people see and hear with regard to television advertising. We should be leaving it to the common sense of Australians—to their good judgment and, frankly, in most cases, perhaps their judgment is better than the collective wisdom around this building—and allow them to make decisions. Where necessary, we should certainly make sure they make informed decisions—that they make decisions with the right evidence and the right information in order to know the consequences of those decisions.

My stance on this bill will not be universally popular. In fact, as somebody who is not a parent I will probably receive some criticism that I am not informed on these matters or able to make a qualified judgment. I note some nodding on the government benches on that very matter. But I stand on this point of principle—and in years to come, should I be a parent, I look forward to the debates that I will have with the colleagues who challenged me on this—because I think it is important that sometimes we question the rush to government legislation. The idea that advertising is somehow the major contributor to childhood obesity needs to be challenged. It needs to be challenged because, indeed, we have adults with an increasing problem of obesity—adults who should know better than to be sublimely influenced by adverts.

There is a longstanding problem of adult obesity that seems to flow from adults to children to some extent. We have evidence coming from hospitals and health clinics that children as young as one or two years of age are being diagnosed as overweight or obese. Doctors from the Children’s Hospital at Westmead reported only earlier this year, in February, seeing children as young as one and two years of age who are overweight and suffering from obesity. Those children have not been influenced by television advertising—certainly not. Those children have been influenced by one thing and one thing alone, and that is the food put on their table, the food put in their mouths—what it is and the quantity of it.