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

Tonight I wish to advise the Senate that I had the pleasure of speaking about the issue of obesity, including in a debate at the 10th International Congress on Obesity in Sydney. The congress was co-chaired by my friend and internationally renowned expert Professor Paul Zimmet of the International Diabetes Institute, together with Professor Ian Caterson and Associate Professor Kate Steinbeck. Having such a prestigious congress in Australia does the organisers and indeed our nation great credit. The organisers included Professor Boyd Swinburn, President of the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity, Professor Joseph Proietto, Scientific Program Committee Chair and Claude Bouchard, President of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. Professor Zimmet, in his opening speech to the congress, said of obesity:

We don’t have the luxury of time to deal with this issue—it’s as big a threat as global warming and bird flu ...

That is what he said. We have all seen much media coverage of the congress. I hope we are likewise concerned to learn that Australia remains in the top four in the world behind the United States, United Kingdom and Mexico in terms of overweight and obesity and that we are now leading the world in the rate of increase in childhood obesity.

In this context of obesity as a world threat, I was shocked and dismayed when I discovered upon visiting a very significant and prominent secondary school in Hobart that at lunchtime the children were sitting on the grass eating their lunch but there was nobody on the oval or on the playground enjoying sport, football, soccer, cricket, hockey and the like. Those areas were empty. It is a little bit like the proverbial hospital without any patients. I made some inquiries subsequently and, in a recent meeting of a few weeks ago in my office with the most senior executive members of the Australian Sports Commission, I asked about this predicament and whether or not it was uncommon across Australia. They advised that it was not an uncommon predicament to have our school grounds empty of children during lunch and break times.

Why can’t our children play sport—football, soccer, cricket or whatever it may be—during the lunch hour, during recess or after school? I am advised that it is because of public liability insurance and the cost of supervision for teachers. Apparently, many teachers will not supervise sport at lunchtime or during breaks in the school day. Is there some sort of demarcation line being drawn between the roles of supervision and contact teaching?

I would have thought that for every state government around Australia there was a duty of care to Australia’s children because the state governments own, operate and manage our schools. They have a duty of care to ensure that all our children have an opportunity to play and be physically active at lunchtime and during those breaks. When I was a kid at school, I played all sorts of sports on the playground without supervision, but if the state governments require and desire supervision then it should be provided for our children. Each day there is about a one-hour lunchtime and about 20 to 30 minutes break time during the day. That is up to two hours a day. What does that mean? It means, if you draw that to its logical conclusion, that there is an equivalent of nearly 250 hours per year in precious physical activity that is being lost through schools’ and state governments’ reluctance to ensure supervision of our students or, indeed, to ensure that they can play appropriately and safely on the school oval and in the school playground.

Childhood obesity is getting worse, not better. We seem to be letting down our children here in Australia. Obesity and diabetes are now recognised as the worst health epidemics in history, as recently indicated by Professor Paul Zimmet, with more than 100,000 Australians contracting diabetes and 200,000 Australians becoming obese each year. The rate of childhood obesity has tripled in just over 10 years and half of those children who are now overweight or obese will remain so into adulthood and become vulnerable to diabetes, heart disease, cancer and a range of other complications. There are an estimated 12,000 deaths per year resulting from weight related problems in Australia, according to a recent report, and as I indicated the crisis is getting worse.

If one considers the bare minimum of two hours PE a week in schools which was forced on the states by the Australian government just last year, then the end result is 80 hours a year scheduled PE. You can offset that with approximately 250 hours a year in lost recreational sport time as a result of state government negligence. That is what I call it—state government negligence. It is a breach of duty of care to our children. The state governments have let our children down as a result of an inappropriate school system and a teaching system which baulks at supervising student sport time out of what would perhaps otherwise be considered contact hours. I want to know how many schools there are like this around Australia today, not just in Tasmania, and what is being done about it. I am sure that the parents, friends and parents’ councils would express equally their concerns about this.

With respect to another matter, I would like to pay a compliment to the Australian Beverages Council for their decision last month to withdraw fizzy, sugary soft drinks from primary schools. In my view, that is a good step forward. I spoke to the chief executive officer of the Australian Beverages Council, Tony Gentile, some years ago and have had some contact with him about this issue, making representations to do exactly that. They have now adopted a policy to not engage in any direct commercial activity in primary schools unless otherwise requested by school authorities. What does that actually mean? It means that the ball is now in the court of the schools. The schools must decide, and the state governments around Australia must decide, whether they will accept that or introduce fizzy, sugary carbonated soft drinks into primary schools in Australia. That is their decision. What is their response? I would like to know what they are going to do in the interests of children. Ninety-five per cent of the non-alcoholic beverage industry in Australia includes Coca Cola and Cadbury Schweppes. It is now time, in my view, for the states and territories to remove fizzy sugary soft drinks from schools and phase out self-indulgent food. Some of the states have acted, and I congratulate those states that have, but in Tasmania the education minister, David Bartlett, keeps passing the buck to schools and says it is up to each individual school.

I would also like to refer to what happened just a few days ago when I opened the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity in Sydney where I supported the commonly called lap banding, or bariatric surgery, as a cost-effective preventative health procedure which saves lives. Professor Paul O’Brien was a key organiser for this international conference based in Sydney and I have enjoyed working with him and his colleagues on this matter. I am now convinced, as a result of reading the research and evidence, some of which has been released just this week, that the bariatric lap band surgery actually works. Not only does it work but it is cost-effective for the taxpayers of Australia, with many thousands of dollars in savings over a period of time.

Finally, I would like to advise the Senate that on 18 October this year I will be holding in Parliament House my seventh healthy lifestyle forum to help combat childhood obesity—featuring a range of experts from industry, the health sector, the food sector and the like. I do it because I believe obesity is and should be recognised as a national health priority and given the status of a chronic disease like diabetes. I will keep promoting the cause. I do it because we owe it to our children to use our maturity and expertise to give them the gift of a long and healthy life— (Time expired)