Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to discuss my proposed amendment to the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010

Researchers from the University of Otago, in Dunedin, studied 1,000 children and adults, aged from three to 26. It was a longitudinal study, from childhood to early adulthood. They found that those who watched television for more than two hours a day had higher levels of obesity, blood cholesterol and tobacco, as well as lower levels of physical fitness when they reached adulthood than kids who watched fewer than two hours of television a day. Why? Part of the reason is that, while kids are watching TV, they are not exercising. The study found that another key factor was that, whilst kids were watching TV, they were constantly being bombarded with ads for drink and foods full of fat and sugar. They take advertising as truth and they do not have the ability to unpack a message to critically analyse why the ad exists and how the advertiser is trying to influence them. There is no doubt that we are facing an obesity crisis in this country and that we are gorging our way to a time when our children, maybe the first generation in a long time, will have shorter life expectancies than those of their parents. Some argue that junk food advertising does not contribute to obesity. I have also listened carefully over the years to the arguments that advertising, especially junk food advertising, is not designed to get children to eat more junk food. To these claims I would simply ask: why advertise then?

Why would these multinational junk food corporations spend billions peddling their unhealthy products if the advertising did not rope in the kids? I support the Australian Greens bill but, in its current form, I feel that it is too broad. The ban times, in my view, are simply too long and do not realistically reflect the demographics of viewers and their viewing habits. I believe the ban should target the times when kids are actually watching TV and, more importantly, watching without parental supervision. That is why I seek to amend the bill to make the junk food advertising operating ban between 6 am and 10 am and between 3.30 pm and 7 pm.

This will protect children without threatening network revenues, to the extent that I fear the proposal will never see the light of day. It is a proposal with a lot of merit. We need to stop these unhealthy messages being sent to our kids. I believe that the amendment that I have circulated is a realistic way to achieve this. But I want to make it clear that I will be supporting the second reading stage of this bill because I believe it has a lot of merit.