John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clocks accordingly.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So many in this chamber, in our parliament and in our community agree with the focus of the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010. This is a major issue for our community. However, at the beginning of this speech I have to say to Senator Brown and the people who are supporting this bill that, though we have great sympathy with their desire to make change in our community, at this stage we do not accept the need for the regulation which is spelled out in the bill.

I do note that the bill before us today is not the same bill that the Standing Committee on Community Affairs considered in 2008. There have been changes, and I think they certainly reflect some of the discussion that happened in the Community Affairs consideration at that time. That shows the way the debate must continue. The way we view these things, the way we respond, will evolve as more people come into the discussion and as more evidence is provided. As the National Preventative Health Strategy called on all people and government to do, we must have a key comprehensive strategy on the important issue of obesity in our community.

The strategy stated seven key objectives, the first of which is that there must be shared responsibility. We must develop effective strategic partnerships across the community to ensure that, at all levels of government, industry, business, unions, the non-government sector, research institutions and anywhere else, anyone who wants to be involved in this process should be involved in sharing the response and sharing the knowledge.

The second strategy is that we should act on these issues early and throughout life. This is not a problem that is related to age, location, process or family—it is something that we must consider across all of life. We need to work with individuals, families and, most importantly, within the community.

That leads onto the next objective, which is to engage communities. We need to actively engage with people where they live, where they work and where they play—at home, in schools, in workplaces and in the community. We have to inform, enable—most particularly enable—and support people to make healthy choices: healthy choices for themselves that they can own, not things imposed from outside, not from listening to experts who in many ways in their informing processes lose the audience. Too many words, too many rules and too many directives sometimes lose the battle. I think we have heard a few times that there is a battle. We have to engage, we have to identify and then we need to work together.

The fourth objective is to influence markets and develop connected and coherent policies—for example, through measures such as taxation and responsive regulation. This is one of the key recommendations, because that adjective ‘coherent’ is one that we need to take note of. Very often, in our need to make change, in our responses on something which we feel is important and we value, there is a tendency to leap forward quickly, to take an action that we might think will be positive, we might think will add to change, but we end up not having a coherent set of policies and, most importantly, forgetting to bring people along with us.

You cannot have a coherent policy, one that crosses all levels of government, without engaging with people and making sure that everybody is with you, understands the issue fully, and is prepared to listen and to conciliate and negotiate. Sometimes, in our need to be seen to be doing something, we forget that in making real difference, as I said on another of the objectives, we need to work effectively together.

The next objective is to reduce inequity through targeting disadvantage. We have heard that many times. Government policy has made an attempt to identify areas where there is particular disadvantage and clearly target those people and areas to ensure that the response is effective and not one size fits all. We understand that in working to develop a policy—in any area, but I think most particularly those who engage with families and communities on an issue such as obesity—we need to be sensitive and to understand that there are different needs and issues in different parts of our community. As I said, the directive ‘this will be the response and it will apply across the board’ is sometimes not the most effective response. The National Preventative Health Strategy did pick that up.

When we were looking at the Preventative Health Strategy, we also—as this government does across all elements of social policy—looked at the particular needs of Indigenous Australians. That must be brought into any discussion or debate that we have.

The last recommendation of the strategy, which is also part of the government’s response, is to look at our current primary healthcare process and refocus it to a clear understanding of prevention. We have heard the figures. There is no argument about the fact that if we can identify and prevent the cause of illness, if we can ensure that people understand that and put strategies in place cooperatively to address those major changes, we will have a healthier community across the board, which will inevitably lead to cost savings in the medical system. There have been many studies on that across the globe. The real push, apart from our need to respond to our citizenry in making sure that there is effective health care, is to look at the health budget. We need to refocus the health budget to ensure that prevention, understanding and education have a high profile and we are not completely reliant on extraordinarily expensive emergency care.

Developing the National Preventative Health Strategy took a number of years. In 2008, when the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs had its inquiry into the previous bill on this issue, the task force was still working towards bringing forward its final report. The report was produced, the government made an initial response and we continue to respond to those very important principles as we develop health policy and reform health across the country. That means engaging with industry, responding cooperatively and taking a whole-of-life approach to health issues. Most important, and I think a key aspect of the discussion we are having this morning, is working within community to engage within community. As I said earlier, that is not to impose from outside, to rush in with one element of a response, but rather to work cooperatively so that we have—I requote the strategy—a cohesive response that makes people feel as though they are involved, they own the policy and they have a role in it.

I congratulate the Australian Greens for putting this issue clearly on the agenda. They have led over many years in this area of advertising reform and linking it to process. I do not accept that the way to move this forward is to have a simple advertising ban. We had debate in the community and among our committee about how it should work with other areas, and I think that is important. But what we have in the bill this morning is leading with a ban, leading with a direction, leading with legislation, rather than working with industry and community to bring forward processes from those areas. I think that should be the response to the seven principles of the strategy that I outlined.

No-one could doubt that if this piece of legislation went through there would be a change. There would be no advertising of these products between early morning and late night. That is an element of change that we have had between 2008 and now. The bill that went before the community affairs committee in 2008 did not have such a wide range. This one is a wider response. It says there should not be any advertising, of any kind, of what the bill refers to as junk food—and there was quite a degree of debate among the community affairs committee as to how you define the term ‘junk’—on the TV networks between those hours. I believe—and certainly I will be arguing it today—that response is too wide-ranging. It does not bring industry along with it. It says, ‘This is what we’re going to do and this is how it’s going to work.’ While there should always be a wide range of options on the table, in our community now, as a result of the work that has been done on the national health strategy, we have the Preventative Health Agency, which has been given the authority by this parliament to monitor the effectiveness of regulations and initiatives. It will continue to engage with community and bring together the expertise, knowledge and commitment of people in the Australian community and internationally to analyse, work effectively with and disseminate the latest evidence. That will lead to a coherent and cohesive connected policy framework.

We know that efforts have already been made across a range of communities and industries to ensure that the issues of obesity, protection of our community and protection of our health are moved forward. It is important to note that that has occurred. Sometimes, I think, people who are caught up in the need to make change, people who are committed to a principle, do not always acknowledge work that has been done, because that work may not have reached the point that those people want to get to.

Through our community affairs inquiry and through ongoing discussion with industry, we know that there have been a range of changes in the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice, in industry responsiveness in the areas of healthy food and lifestyle and in ensuring that there is an understanding by the advertising industry and by the communications networks of the best ways to respond both to the needs of the market and to the needs of the wider community and health base.

An example is the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative, a voluntary code developed by the Australian food and beverage industry. The code requires that advertisements targeted at children help promote healthy dietary choices and lifestyles. Linked with that healthy choice in lifestyle component of the initiative is a truth in advertising process. This prohibits advertisements shown to any members of the community—it is not limited to children—from portraying something which is wrong, which is misleading or which can lead to false expectations. When you put those things together, you see the cooperative way that the Australian Food and Grocery Council, the Australian Beverages Council and the various bodies involved in communications, TV and advertising are approaching this issue. They are not running away from this issue; they are not moving away from the argument; they are not excluding themselves from a commitment—one we all know we need—to the health of our communities. People have chosen to be involved.

There was certainly some discussion during the hearings of the community affairs committee about the level of trust in industry self-regulation. In some ways I share in that concern. But I always believe we should allow people the opportunity to be engaged and then, should their participation, their cooperation and their actions not meet our requirements, we can pursue options to move in different directions. While the cooperative arrangement is being pursued, however, and while the industry is voluntarily changing its practice and while it is showing a willingness to listen and to be involved, I think we should be encouraging that. As the strategy pointed out, we should attempt to make sure that industry is involved in the process rather than seeing it as the enemy or taking a punitive approach to it. The needs of the industry should be recognised as should its achievements in addressing this issue. The community affairs committee hearings had a number of really positive discussions. That is how we like to work in the community affairs committee—we like to have open discussions so people can share their views and be involved in working towards a genuine outcome.

At some stage—it is in HansardI did say that my own childhood was actually enhanced by some of the advertisements for products that were important to me at the time. I hope there is no commercial problem here, but I did refer to Cherry Ripe advertisements and the beautiful images that were in them. As part of that discussion, I talked about the fact that there was, at that time, no doubt in my family and in the families I knew that those sorts of advertisements were about luxury foods. Those products referred to in this bill as ‘junk food’—unnecessarily in my view—were products that were openly available in the community. While they were openly available, people knew and understood what those products were. The key responsibility, when looking at those sorts of advertisements and sharing them in family and school communities, was knowing what was appropriate at what time.

One of the things we talked about was the role of parental responsibility and the role of effective community education. Effective education is needed to ensure that the people watching the advertisements understand that the kinds of foods being promoted, the ones which are the target of this bill, are not your staple family meals. We are not saying that everybody should eat the foods referred to in this bill—they are not your standard meal. One of the key aspects of the government response to the whole health strategy is community education. People need to understand the necessity for a good basic diet and that the kinds of things we are talking about now are add-ons—they are not core diet, but they are part of life.

The way you work effectively in, live in and survive in the community is to know boundaries. Very often people forget that there must be personal accountability and personal responsibility. Advertising has a role and industry has a role, but the final decision must be with individuals, families and society. I believe that part of the preventative health strategy in our community must look at appropriate education—support for people so that they understand health, they understand diet and they understand the importance of advertising. The government needs to work effectively in that space.

So responding to people in their own lives and their own schools, as we have already done with the various programs aimed at encouraging increased physical activity, to enable them to work out for themselves what is best is a strategy that should be part of our response. We should take that approach rather than immediately moving to a blanket advertising ban. I am not saying that there is no role in this debate for discussion of the regulation of advertising. What I do say is that we need to look at all the options and engage with all the people who have a definite interest in this area. No-one can just decide to move away from this debate—it is the responsibility of all of us. But if we are going to say that our key response is to ban advertising on what is defined as junk food—and I am not quite sure whether that definition is particularly clear—and that everything else will fall in around that, we are not giving the appropriate message, that each of us has a responsibility, to the community and to every individual. We work within our community to achieve a result.

The debate on this issue will continue. The way it should occur is through the Australian Preventative Health Agency, which is calling upon all of us to be involved and work with them so that we have a response that engages, informs and results in an effective policy that we share and own.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010. The overarching issues that we deal with in this topic are very important and Senator Moore has reflected upon the significance of the overarching issues of obesity, particularly childhood obesity. Obesity is a serious problem. As the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs quoted in its report on the predecessor to this bill:

It estimated the total financial cost of obesity in Australia in 2008 was $8.3 billion and suggested that by 2020 the number of obese Australians will have grown to 6 million.

These are significant figures. Whilst I have some general concerns about the often bulking-up of these epidemiological studies into enormous economic costs, the figures on the number of Australians who are overweight, the growing trend of obesity and the impact that has on the health of those individuals, and the costs to our health system and other flow-on economic costs, are quite real. What is also quite real is the known link between childhood obesity and adult obesity. It is a fact that children who are obese are more likely to end up being obese adults. However, I do not believe that this bill presents a serious solution to this problem; in fact, this bill does not really present any solution to this serious problem of obesity.

As Senator Moore expressed, this is very much a cultural problem. People genuinely know and understand that eating badly is bad for them, but they still do it and they still promulgate that habit to their children. People know that not doing enough exercise is bad for them, yet they still fail to do enough exercise and they still fail to encourage and facilitate enough exercise in the lives of their children. These are things that are known and it is a cultural issue that we have to try to change and redress.

I see in the gallery today that we have some visiting school groups. I am sure all of those students know that eating badly is bad for them and that they need to do more exercise in their lives in order to have a healthy lifestyle in the future. But there are a range of pressures on this—from time pressures to what is served at the family table. All of those types of issues are there, but advertising is by no means the driving force.

If you look at the evidence in this debate, it is quite clear that banning junk food advertising really has no impact whatsoever. If you go through study after study, you will struggle to find any genuine causal link. In a 2004 lead editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine it was argued:

… there is no good evidence that advertising has a substantial influence on children’s food consumption and, consequently, no reason to believe that a complete ban on advertising would have any useful impact on childhood obesity rates.

It continued by saying:

The claim that food advertising is a major contributor to children’s food choices and the rising tide of childhood obesity has obvious appeal, but as an argument it does not stand up to scrutiny.

Indeed, it does not stand up to scrutiny, and research study after research study has continued to say so. Just last year the Productivity Commission released a staff working paper on childhood obesity that concluded:

… while research shows that television viewing and childhood obesity are related, the direction of causation and the magnitude of the contribution of food advertising to obesity is uncertain.

That is a fairly logical point. Research shows that there is a link between the extent of television viewing—a fairly sedentary activity—and childhood obesity, but it does not show there is a link between the products that are advertised on television and childhood obesity. The Productivity Commission report went on to say:

While research shows correlations between advertising and children’s preferences, there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between advertising and children’s food preferences and weight outcomes. It is also difficult to isolate the effect of advertising from other factors that affect the television viewing and obesity relationship, such as the sedentary nature of television viewing.

If, as the evidence suggests, the link between television viewing and childhood obesity is tenuous or, at most, small in magnitude, it is unlikely that banning the advertising of energy-dense foods would significantly address the prevalence of childhood obesity. This was a study done only last year by the Productivity Commission—in their usual way, it is very well-sourced and researched—into all of the findings of different experts during that time. The Productivity Commission and the Royal Society of Medicine are not alone in that regard. Frontier Economics released a bulletin in January 2008 in which they tried to assess some of the evidence and analysis in this debate. They found:

Most studies could not identify a clear relationship between advertising and consumption, and those that did indicated the impact was small – a mere 2% of the variance that could be related to different influences such as family meal habits, exercise levels and so forth. Moreover, recent studies of Canada and Sweden indicate that obesity does not diminish where advertising to children has been banned.

I emphasise the last sentence because this is the key point of this debate. We are debating a bill put forward by the Greens proposing to ban and restrict certain types of food advertising, doing so under the premise that it will somehow have an impact on obesity, yet I am unable to find clear-cut evidence, research, studies or data that suggest it will. What you can find are suggestions that there are better ways of tackling childhood obesity. The PC report, which I referenced before, highlights other alternative community based interventions. In Australia, it highlighted the Be Active Eat Well program, saying:

The intervention was designed and implemented by parents and local organisations (such as schools and community agencies). The strategy includes nutrition strategies, physical activity strategies and screen time strategies to promote healthy eating and physical activity. This long-term intervention ran for several years.

This is the type of intervention program which is far more likely to succeed. Firstly, it is built from the grassroots up. It involves parents, school communities and local people who can impact what happens in day-to-day lives. It involves the correlation and combination of what you eat and how you exercise. This example has, indeed, worked overseas. The Productivity Commission report went on to highlight examples in France of similar community based intervention programs:

In each town the intervention is led by a committee, and suggestions are received for different community initiatives, activities and diets. Initiatives may include organising games at school playtime, walk-to-school groups and learning about vegetables in the classroom.

               …            …            …

Half of the towns showed a statistically significant decrease in overweight and obesity combined between 2005 and 2007.

So we have evidence to say that a holistic approach similar to some of the measures Senator Moore was talking about can work, can deliver change. This is where the focus of this debate needs to be. Talking about advertising bans is a distraction to the main game of tackling this issue. Even if there were any evidence that it would work, frankly there is every chance that the horse has bolted on this because children are now viewing less free-to-air television. Children are accessing information from a far wider variety of sources and different media and the internet. If Senator Conroy gets his way, obviously they will be accessing a lot more internet. There are varieties of ways by children will get information.

Advertising is often highlighted as a great plague on society, but that is not the truth. Advertising does not kill people. Advertising does not make people fat or drunk. For all the claims and desires of different people, especially the Greens, banning advertising is not a solution. We need cultural change—things that bring people back to healthy lifestyles. Cultural initiatives are the answer; this bill is not.

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

One would wonder why advertisers bother spending millions of dollars on advertising. Given the two speeches I have just heard in this place, it is obvious that advertising has an impact; otherwise, advertisers would not be spending millions on it. The Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010 amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to encourage healthier eating habits among children and to prohibit the broadcasting of advertisements for junk food during certain times. The bill is not the sole thing we need to do to address obesity and associated diseases in our children, our juveniles and our adult population. The Greens have never ever said that—not once. This is part of the comprehensive approach we need to take to manage the obesity epidemic in our community. Some people are saying that we are going to be the peak of the healthiest generation and that life expectancy will in fact decrease from now because of our unhealthy habits. We have to do something about this epidemic.

The current restriction on advertising to children—people under 14 years of age—set out in the Children’s Television Standards 2009, applies from 7.00 am to 8.30 pm. The bill amends these times to cover the period between 6.00 am and 9.30 pm. A range of key stakeholder organisations, including the Obesity Policy Coalition, have argued that the existing time frame does not represent the actual viewing times of children in this age group. Those organisations support the extension of time to ensure the advertising restriction is effective.

In Australia, 62 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women are considered overweight or obese. High body mass contributes 7.5 per cent to the overall health burden in Australia, with type 2 diabetes at 40 per cent and heart disease at 34 per cent as the major risks. Obesity rates in Australia are generally increasing, so we quite clearly need to address this issue.

Currently in Australia the potential cost saving to the health sector would be $812 million—if we are able to eliminate, for example, just obesity issues. Those statistics give a brief snapshot of why it is so important that we address this issue. Not only are there some very important economic considerations but, most importantly, this is about the health of our community and future generations, ensuring that we have good health programs which generally improve the health of the Australian community.

Successive governments have run advertising and information campaigns to improve diets and increase physical activity with the aim of preventing or reducing obesity and improving our health. Despite these campaigns, obesity rates have continued to rise—the latest figures were released last week. This suggests that to date some of these programs may well not have been effective and that, if we are going to change behaviour, we need to provide different information. A lot of these campaigns have been undermined directly by advertising of products on television to our children. We need to refocus our social marketing campaigns, deal with economic incentives and, in some cases, change our legislative base—for example, by banning junk food advertising, an approach the Greens have been advocating for some considerable time as part of an integrated approach to dealing with this issue.

We need a greater understanding of consumer interaction. This conclusion is supported by research in behavioural economics which has shown that, in many cases, even when consumers have ready access to understandable information, they still fail to choose the products or the services which best suit their needs—because people may ignore or misinterpret relevant information or fail to act because of other barriers to them changing their behaviour.

Biases in consumer decision making are well known to traders of goods and services. They have large marketing budgets and present their products in the best possible light within the limits of the law. They may also exploit consumer biases to increase demand for their products. That is what advertising is all about—let us face it. The large amount of advertising generated by the manufacturers of junk food, for example, makes it very difficult for healthy eating messages to be effective. Again, it highlights the need for strong programs and a variety of programs to tackle this problem from a variety of angles. It also highlights the need for consumers to be involved in assisting in the advisory process, particularly talking to parents.

In marketing to children, advertisers have encouraged the phenomena of what has been called ‘label pester power’. This has been defined as the constant demand for parents to purchase items, be they clothes, toys, gadgets, or various other goods—in particular, food. Pestering consists of persistent nagging—that is, pleas which are repeated consistently for parents to purchase an item. This type of pestering is not as effective with parents as ‘importance nagging’. Importance nagging represents a more sophisticated means by which children claim that something is necessary for their educational or sporting progress, or for their general wellbeing, which is where the issues concerning food come in. Importance nagging takes advantage of parents’ desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on any guilt they may feel about not spending enough quality time with their children.

According to the Australian Centre for Science in the Public Interest, pestering strategies undermine parental authority, which is where we come to this business of ‘It’s all about parental authority’. Parents are forced to choose between being the bad guy by saying no to junk food, or giving in to incessant demands. This conflict in negotiation between parents and children is recognised as ‘co-shopping’, which is when children are in the shopping centre with their parents. Parents describe this as extremely stressful because of the constant purchase demands made by children. Anybody who has been in a shopping centre with children will understand exactly what I am talking about.

An increasing number of overseas findings agree that television commercials for sweets, snacks and fast foods are the mainstays of advertising which targets children. According to a 2007 study by the American Kaiser Family Foundation, half of all advertising time on children’s television is devoted to food advertising. What does that say about what advertisers want to do? They know their market. They spend an enormous amount of money advertising their products very creatively to children. That is why they advertise these products to children so that children will want to pester their parents to buy them. It is quite obvious. Product makers could save an enormous amount of money if they thought advertising was not working. Many advertisements associate physical activity with the products and highlight the health benefits to be gained by their consumption. It is often stressed that they contain ‘essential nutrients’.

The British Heart Foundation’s Children’s Food Campaign concluded that food marketing to children is almost always for unhealthy products, and this plays an important role in encouraging unhealthy eating habits which are likely to continue from childhood into adulthood. Further, evidence suggests that advertisements affect food choices at both brand and category levels—that is, a McDonald’s hamburger advertisement is likely to not only make it more probable that a person will buy a McDonald’s hamburger in preference to another brand but also that person will buy a hamburger per se. In other words, they will go out, they want a hamburger, but they will then go and buy a McDonald’s. In other words, there is evidence that advertising unhealthy foods to children influences not only which brands children choose but also the overall balance of their diet, encouraging them to eat energy-dense, salty, sugary or fatty foods in place of those which are more nutritious and wholesome.

The advertising industry introduced self-regulation—the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative—in January 2009. However, research including the Australian Food and Grocery Council report just this year—January 2011—found that one in five food advertisements in children’s programs were for high-fat, sugar and salt products. The self-regulation is clearly not working to effectively protect children.

One aspect of the responsible marketing and consumption argument is that, unlike tobacco, junk foods can be enjoyed in moderation without causing undue harm to children and adults. The Cadbury company maintains, for example, that its products can be enjoyed as a treat. However, at the same time as the Cancer Council of New South Wales points out, Cadbury has spent millions of dollars creating a new internet cartoon series featuring Freddo Frog. The marketing features puzzles, games and activities embedded within the cartoon and from which children can be involved in the cartoon’s development. The company claims this represents responsible marketing and does not have children featured. That is simply not responsible marketing and we believe we need to take action. (Time expired)

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to contribute to this debate on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010. I was smiling to myself as I was listening to Senator Siewert talking about pressures on parents shopping. I had my two grandchildren in the supermarket on the weekend and went through the painful process of finding the checkout that did not have the lollies at the checkout to tempt them. Trying absolutely to teach two children aged under four that ‘no’ means no is no mean feat, but it is an important role for parents to be able to do that. The real issue that we have today is that while we commend this effort and this debate around childhood obesity and the issue of television advertising that targets children, the government does not believe that this is the way to actually achieve effective change. Just banning advertising to children does nothing about changing parenting skills, understanding behaviour modification, understanding the complexities of obesity and actively developing good habits.

Since the inquiry took place, following the bill’s referral to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs in 2008, the debate has actually moved along quite a lot. One of the purposes of such an inquiry is to push the debate on, to move public opinion, to move the responsibility of the industry and for it to step up to the plate and do something about this issue. The government has some role to play. The work that we are doing in addressing childhood obesity involves ramping up our investment in research and development, supporting organisations like the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and looking at the whole healthy children’s initiative through the COAG process. All of this is part and parcel of addressing the fundamental issues of unhealthy practices, unhealthy foods, food additives and junk food marketing.

One of the things that I have noticed is that food is quite a challenge for parents whose child is attending a childcare centre. They have to observe so many rules and regulations around the child taking their food with them. There are so many specific obligations on parents around packaging their children’s lunches and ensuring that, for example, their lunch materials are not contaminated by peanut butter or other things that might create allergies in children. What we are seeing is a real shift to pre-packaged food. As Senator Siewert said, when things are marketed as very healthy products—such as fruit bars, which are concentrated fructose; or a juice box, which has 15 per cent juice, lots of sugar and plenty of water—the challenge for us is to understand that those things are not necessarily marketed to children; they are actually marketed to parents in the guise of being healthy foods. So the challenge here for us is to understand what so many people who made submissions to the inquiry said—that is, that we have to take a much more comprehensive approach to these things. Food marketing is just one element of a very complex debate.

In the dissenting report from Senator Siewert and Senator Brown, the issue was about acknowledging the growing challenge of obesity in this country, especially childhood obesity and how that sets people up for a lifetime of poor health outcomes. So the government has decided to try to do something far more constructive in this way by investing through COAG to bring together a national approach through our national health ministers and our national sports ministers and through trying to understand the regulatory environment that we are in and to engage in health prevention rather than health control. We all know that our health budget is only going to grow exponentially unless we start to address these fundamental childhood issues and set people up for a healthy adulthood. A most comprehensive investment of $872 million into that COAG process is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you look at the agreements that underline all of those COAG initiatives, you will see a raft of things. There are issues around research. There are issues around prevention. There are issues around activity. There are issues around education for parents. There are activities around education for community workers and for those who are engaged with and who support families. There are great initiatives around our health workforce in helping parents and children to deal with these issues. We are trying to be far more interventionist at an early age and to look at prevention rather than cure. When you think about that and about what is happening in targeting at-risk groups—Senator Moore has been very concerned about the growing levels of obesity in Aboriginal children—and when you look at what is happening in the Closing the Gap initiative, which is about trying to get fresh foods to community stores and alternatives to deep fried, pre-packaged foods, you see that none of that has anything to do with advertising. It is really about making sure that people have access to a variety of healthy food options, and I think that is a much more sensible approach, and we have worked very hard on that.

An initiative we funded is the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program, which is part and parcel of a growing community garden program across Australia. This program is really vibrant and dynamic. It goes to the heart of children and families having access to fresh foods. There are lots of conversations about food miles, farmers’ markets and social enterprises that are being developed around ensuring that children from low-income families have an opportunity to access fresh foods of all kinds. We have a revitalised health and PE curriculum in our schools that focuses on educating children at the pressure points of the targeted marketing that Senator Siewert and Senator Brown are so concerned about. We are really trying to find some healthy options. We have school breakfast clubs. We have all of those things happening that are about children educating themselves and each other about healthy food choices.

Going to the nub of this debate, the government have strengthened junk food advertising restrictions. We are limiting the use of popular characters and proprietary characters in advertising during the children’s programming hours. I remember the Milky Bar Kid from my youth, which was a very early challenge in this whole debate. The Milky Bar Kid was very healthy because it was milk. We know the subtle pressures that come into marketing. We know the subtleties of advertising. We know the skills that advertisers use in targeting their markets. Whether it is about junk food, whether it is about environmental programs or whether it is about something else, it is consumer advertising.

The Children’s Television Standards were reviewed in 2009 and they now require food product advertisements to not mislead or provide incorrect information about the nutritional value of the product. In May last year we released our response to the National Preventative Health Taskforce, noting the recommendation to reduce the exposure of children and others to marketing, advertising, promoting and sponsorship of junk food. We believe our challenge is in educating parents. Our challenge is in ensuring that we do not take the easy option—the fast food option that parents, children and adults and grandparents like me do not go to the cupboard and try to reward. That is another whole issue—a mentality about rewarding children for good behaviour. What we really have to do is take up the challenge and teach children that no means no.

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

Australia is one of the fattest nations on earth. The latest research shows that more than 60 per cent of our adults, 25 per cent of our children are either overweight or obese. Obesity leads to poor health outcomes, as has been indicated already in this chamber during this debate on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010

Obesity leads to an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended. A more active healthy lifestyle is the answer, but it is easy to say and it is hard to do. In 2011, in this era we live in, we live in an obesogenic environment where sedentary lifestyles are encouraged rather than discouraged. Our children, for example, are spending more time watching television, being involved in computers on the internet, Facebook and other media like than ever before. Incidental exercise has declined due to urban design, transport arrangements, safety and for other reasons. We eat more, including more energy-dense, nutrient-poor food. Hereditary factors are also very important. While there is much that parents and individuals can do, as has been indicated by a number of speakers in this place already, there is a collective response from all levels of government and in particular the federal government to address the needs of our broader community.

What can be done? I have some suggestions and they are as follows: firstly, targets—they are used for cutting carbon emissions, they should be used to safeguard our children’s health; secondly, children’s health and fitness should be benchmarked, just like we do for literacy and numeracy. These results will be vital for designing healthy and active initiatives in response. When it comes to changing behaviours, we need to go beyond the fear as a motivator, which is now accepted as increasingly ineffective. Encouraging children to enjoy sport and physical activity is a key part of the solution to achieve better healthy outcomes. I also suggest mandatory PE in schools. Years ago, I was banging my head against a brick wall here saying that PE must be mandatory in schools. But in 2004, I am very pleased to say, the Howard government announced at one of my healthy lifestyle forums in Launceston that it would be mandatory and that it should be 120 minutes of mandatory weekly physical activity. But in my view that is not enough. We should now set a higher target and increase that to 180 minutes over time.

The federal government has dropped the ball with respect to the Active After-school Communities program. Minister Mark Arbib unfortunately has extended the program for only one year. So we will see the conclusion of this program, unless the government has a change of plan. We know that the program works. Everybody loves it. It is popular. In Tasmania, for example, 5,000 students benefit from this program. Around Australia, 3,270 schools and 192,000 students participate, based on the last reports from the Australian Sports Commission, who have done an excellent job, including in Tasmania. It is a fantastic program. It was a program announced by the Howard government in 2004 in Launceston and it should continue. The government has dropped the ball.

Now to healthy eating habits—what about the eating side of things? They are critical for our children. In my view, only healthy food should be sold through our schools. We are creating an environment in which our kids grow up and develop habits to be the best they can be. If we are offering unhealthy food in canteens it should be removed. For example, sugary fizzy drinks should not be there. Educational programs on nutritional health and improved advertising standards are essential to address the obesity epidemic in Australia and to create better eating habits across the board.

Other initiatives, for example, should be the establishment of a voucher system encouraging participation in sport across the community; more healthy school breakfasts; veggie gardens across the country in schools and in childcare centres as well; and healthy cooking classes are recommended. If vending machines do not offer healthy options, they should be removed—and this should include in the workplace as well. Workplace health systems and procedures should be put in place. I was speaking about that only this week with an expert in the field, Ruth Colagiuri, who was in the parliament together with others for the forum on non-communicable diseases, NCDs. There is UN meeting coming up on 19 September on this issue. Let me put on the record my strong support for that resolution and my strong encouragement for the government to do whatever it can to support a greater focus on NCDs across the globe. This is not an issue just for the First World; it is an issue for the Third World. Chronic disease is becoming out of control and it needs more resources and a more dedicated focus. I draw that to the attention of the government and I hope that they will follow it up.

I called for obesity to be a national health priority back in 2006 and prior to the 2007 election Labor, to its credit, said, yes, it should be—a good announcement. However, very little has happened since then in terms of the extra resources which are needed. To summarise the cost of obesity, at my instigation Access Economics completed a report some years ago and released it at my Healthy Lifestyle Forum to Help Combat Childhood Obesity in Hobart. The report said that obesity costs the community in Australia $58 billion a year. That is a huge cost to our community in both direct and indirect associated costs. For the Tasmanian economy it is estimated to be $1 billion a year. So obesity leads to higher health costs and is a dead weight on our economy.

The fact is that with two million more Australians having become overweight or obese in the past decade, the obesity epidemic is upon us. If we do nothing, an estimated 6.9 million Australians will be obese by 2025—that is not a record. I hope that in a decade’s time we can look back and say, ‘Yes, we’ve been proactive; yes, we saw that it was a problem and we addressed it,’ in the same way that we can look back at our initiatives to combat tobacco and smoking, where we have got the rates down, and say, ‘Yes, well done. As a community, as a government—across the board—we did have success.’ It is not total success; there is still to work to do in that area. But I hope we can look back and say, ‘Yes, obesity was nominated and identified as a problem and we progressed towards fixing it.’

A lot has been said about the fast-food sector. My call on them now, as it has been over many years, is for them to be part of the solution not part of the problem. I know that moves have been made in the right direction in that regard and I congratulate McDonald’s and others in moving in that right direction. But in terms of the bill before us and the definition of junk food, the bill is simply too strict and too rigid and it is not a bill that I can support in its current form. The AANA, the Australian Association of National Advertisers, have made progress in improving their advertising standards and I know that the Australian Food and Grocery Council are working on reforms amongst their members.

There is certainly a lot more we can do in this area. I would encourage the government to take up the recommendations in the report of the National Preventative Health Taskforce. I know that Professor Rob Moodie was in Parliament House yesterday and that Professor Paul Zimmet is in Parliament House today. Other members of that taskforce put in so much effort and time. For the government to continue to sit on the report and let it get dusty is an absolute national disgrace. They should act on it fast and implement the report’s recommendations, because it is very comprehensive and well thought through.

I thank the Senate for the opportunity to make these points on this bill. (Time expired)

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, also, rise today to contribute to the debate on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010. I have listened to a number of speakers this morning and have to concur that a number of points have been raised which are relevant to this particular issue—and they are good points. They are points that need to be considered in advance. The government is in a position where we recognise that obesity is a serious issue, but at this particular time we are not in a position to support this bill. If we reflect on some of the speakers who have risen this morning, they have made the relevant point, a point that I can relate to—that is, parental responsibility.

I have three children—I would not call them children any longer; all three are of adult age—and I have had to grow up in a society in which my wife and I have had to meet challenges as parents. I think Senator Stephens made the point about walking through the halls of supermarkets with her grandchildren and having to deal with the challenges of lollies and chocolate. I can relate to that. I have met those same challenges. You have to deal with all those variables when you are shopping with children or grandchildren or when you are driving down the road past fast-food outlets, whether it be the golden arches or others. They are the attractions and the challenges that parents need to meet; it is not necessarily about a bill enshrining the issues that associate obesity with the environment we are in. We need to focus on those sorts of challenges as well and look at better ways to equip parents and grandparents—there are all sorts of family make-ups these days—to deal with the issue of obesity

This year on McHappy Day I spent time at McDonald’s at Albany Creek, on the north side of Brisbane—a day that I attend regularly each year now. I must say that I was very encouraged by the number of healthy lifestyle Heart Foundation ticks on their menu and their advertising in the store. There is definitely an attempt being made by fast-food outlets and the food industry as a whole to try and educate people so that they understand the need to eat healthily. That is another positive area; it is an area that needs to be encouraged. I am sure that over time, as we have seen, more and more examples like that will appear in both supermarkets and food outlets.

If you reflect on the times, and I think Senator Barnett made the relevant point, you note lifestyles are changing. People, in particular children, are involved in different lifestyles. I can recall going to school by riding a pushbike and riding the bike home and going out and playing with friends. But these days children seem to be driven either to or from school or, in some cases, they catch the bus. Generally, when they arrive home it is a case of their sitting in front of the computer and being on the internet, on Facebook or other types of programs, and doing their homework as well. So I think these sorts of issues need to be examined and considered.

There has been some discussion around tuckshops and veggie gardens in schools. As a senator for Queensland, I have opened new halls and libraries and other facilities under the Building the Education Revolution program and I have noted on just about all occasions that there have been vegetable gardens, quite successful ones, put into operation by the children in those schools. I think over time such children are adopting a better lifestyle and are certainly being educated at the same time on how to eat better and appropriately. It is the same for tuckshop venues where there has been some significant change in terms of the types of food and drinks provided in them.

Food marketing is but one element. Obesity and this particular problem is a really complex challenge to address. If we look at some of the stats out there, we see something like one in four children is overweight or obese. That really is not acceptable. That is why, in relation to COAG, the government have made investments to tackle this particular health challenge. So far we have made the largest-ever health investment of $872.1 million for prevention over six years. That is a huge investment and demonstration of how committed we are to tackling this particular issue. That includes up to $325.5 million for the Healthy Children initiative to increase physical activity and improve nutrition in settings such as schools and early childhood sites. Up to $366 million is available for programs in the workplace—Healthy Workers, and there is Healthy Communities—that target adults as well. There is $52 million for Australian health surveys to provide valuable information on rates of those overweight, obesity, healthy eating and physical activity. In addition there is $59 million over four years to extend the Measure Up campaign, to increase its research and to target at-risk groups.

I want to focus on one of the initiatives, the national Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, which received $12.8 million to be established, and up to 190 primary schools will receive grants of up to $60,000 to commit to bringing better lifestyles and healthy eating alternatives into their schools. One of the opportunities I had in opening a BER project in Chevallum, up in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, which is close to Palmwoods, was to witness firsthand the great success of the national Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Part of the money had gone towards a kitchen in the multipurpose hall and I was fortunate enough to taste some of the fruits of their labour, the things the students cooked in that kitchen with the ingredients and things that came from their garden. It was such a pleasure to be there on that day and see the joy and satisfaction on the children’s faces in being able to serve those types of food thanks to the school in an area such as Palmwoods ensuring that their students are living and surviving in a healthy environment. Currently 19 schools in Queensland are actively participating in this great initiative. I will not rattle them all off but they include Cairns, Farnborough, Biggenden, Proston, Rosedale, Benarkin, Jandowae, Kulpi, Lowood, Golden Beach, North Arm, Inglewood, Rockville, Bulimba, Geebung, Wellington Point and Nerang. It really demonstrates the capacity and the volume of those schools in Queensland where they have grasped the opportunity of this program with both hands and are making a difference for the children in those school communities.

One other particular area, and I think Senator Moore might have touched on this in her deliberations on this particular issue, is Indigenous communities. I was fortunate to participate in regional, remote and Indigenous committee hearings throughout Queensland. One of the points I made in those hearings was to do with the concerns about nutrition particularly in the far remote Indigenous communities. One of the issues and challenges we face—and that certainly the people in those environments face—is the cost of getting fresh fruit and fresh vegetables to those locations. It is a near-impossible thing to do properly given the tyranny of distance and the issues associated with flooding and rain in those particular areas. So on some occasions there is always a sizeable issue to be dealt with in getting fresh fruit and fresh vegetables out into some of those locations. Taking that example, it is not just an easy fix to whack a ban on television advertisements to satisfy issues associated with obesity. In 2008 a Senate standing committee also dealt with this issue with an inquiry into a former bill, the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertisement (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2008. At that stage the government did not support it on those grounds.

In conclusion, we do not believe this bill is the right way to address this problem of obesity in children. (Time expired)

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to offer some remarks on the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010. It is undoubtedly the case that obesity in general is having an increasingly adverse effect not only on the physical and social health of our community but also on our economy and the future productivity of our nation. Childhood obesity is a matter of particular concern to this government. In fact, I have visited schools in my home state of South Australia and have had discussions with many of the teachers in those schools. They also have concerns regarding obesity and the importance of eating healthily and also exercising for our young people.

The government understands that obesity is an issue which, if left unaddressed, could have the capacity to burden our health system, with an explosion of preventable diseases. Disturbingly, Bureau of Statistics survey figures indicate that well over 50 per cent of the adult population is now classified as overweight or obese. Even more alarmingly, one in four Australian children is now considered to be overweight or obese. What does the future hold for these children, these present and potential contributors to our society?

The World Health Organisation reports that obesity is a global epidemic. Certainly, obesity has reached serious epidemic proportions in Australia. According to an Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study report, ‘Physical inactivity and television-viewing time have been shown to be the strongest correlates with measures of obesity.’ I think it would be fair to say that many parents have concerns about the number of hours that young people are actually spending on computer games and other times where they are actually just sitting rather than being involved in activities. So what is the government doing to help alleviate childhood obesity and encourage increased physical activity and healthy eating? The government is continuing its preventative health investment through COAG—a massive investment of more than $872 million over six years.

Other programs include our Healthy Children initiative, with funding of up to $325.5 million, which aims to encourage and increase physical activity and to foster healthy diet in early childhood centres and schools. And of course the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program has been a resounding success, where many schools are benefiting through the program that has been implemented. It encourages children to experience the pleasure of growing their own fresh fruits and vegetables and preparing and eating them. More than $12 million has been allocated to the rollout of this particular program in Australian schools. I have visited many schools which have that program in place and the children are enthusiastic towards growing their own vegetables and, in many cases, developing their own recipes and then cooking them. It would have been great if we had had that program when we were younger.

The government are also acting in tandem with our food and beverage producers and manufacturers, by engaging in the Food and Health Dialogue, increasing the availability of healthy foods and educating consumers about the connection between the choice of food and future health outcomes. The government have taken intelligent, considered steps to reduce the appeal of junk food to children. We have listened to the 2009 Children’s Television Standards review and we have strengthened junk food advertising restrictions by limiting the use of popular characters during children’s programs on TV. We have also toughened the law on misleading or incorrect information on the nutritional value of these foods, so parents can make an informed choice when purchasing these products for their children. I am always pleased when I come across parents who are looking at the contents of the food that they are buying—breakfast cereals, in particular, come to mind—and I do that with respect to my child.

In May last year, the government took heed of the National Preventative Health Taskforce and took real steps to help reduce exposure of children and others to the marketing, promotion and sponsorship of junk food. We have done this by working with industry under the existing framework that governs Australian media content and, as a result, change is now being achieved through a combination of government regulation and industry self-regulation. I am pleased to report that the commercial television industry code of practice now requires that advertisements should not encourage unhealthy eating or drinking habits. The importance of that cannot be underestimated when we are talking about them appealing to children.

Among industry initiatives, seven of the biggest fast-food chains have come up with a voluntary code of conduct and have agreed that marketing must encourage a healthy lifestyle and physical activity and that advertising targeted at children must meet industry sugar, fat and salt limits. In another positive move, the Australian food and beverage industry have developed the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative—a voluntary code aimed at giving children healthier options. This code requires that advertisements targeted at children help promote healthier lifestyle and dietary choices. The government will continue to monitor the effectiveness of these industry initiatives. We will watch to see if the codes and standards meet the objectives and whether they can adequately address community concern without a need for further government regulation.

Tackling obesity and childhood health in Australia will, of course, require more than just industry self-regulation. It really does need industry to work with the broader community, including families and individuals. It needs a collaborative effort to create a healthier mindset and to try and encourage children to enjoy these foods in moderation and with a healthy physical lifestyle. That is why the Gillard government launched the Australian National Preventive Health Agency on 1 January this year. The agency is designed to consider any and all initiatives to help monitor the effectiveness of current regulations and initiatives and to also bring together some of the best expertise in Australia to gather and analyse evidence.

I need not remind senators of the disinterest of the previous government in tackling childhood obesity. Former Minister for Health and Ageing Tony Abbott consistently dismissed the idea of any decisive role for the Commonwealth in this area. It is fair to say that the Gillard Labor government have not done that. We are very much interested and concerned and we are addressing the issues that we are facing with our young people today. By contrast to the masterful inactivity of the previous government, Labor are demonstrating our commitment to action, elevating this very serious matter to the front line of our National Preventative Health Strategy. So, while we cannot support the bill at this stage, we can express our appreciation of those who join us in putting childhood obesity front and centre.

It is equally the case that we know that it is individual choice that is the essential element in making responsible decisions when it comes to diet and lifestyle. On the issue of choice, this government feels that parents need to make those decisions for their children, and healthy decisions are the way we really should be going. The government commend the Greens’ commitment to targeting obesity in children. We do support the issue. We think it absolutely is important. We understand the significance of it, but the government do not support this bill. We know that food marketing is just one element of a very complex challenge in addressing obesity in our children. As I have already said, the government will continue its investment through COAG to tackle this critical health challenge. So far we have made the largest ever investment in health prevention through $872.1 million over six years through COAG. This includes up to $325.5 million for the healthy children initiative— (Time expired)

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank Senator Siewert for her presentation of the reasons why this bill, the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill 2010 should be passing into law today and I thank all members who have contributed to this debate and Senator Xenophon for his flagged amendment. But it is very clear that the bill will not pass the second reading because we have here the classic alternative in this period of nobody dominating the Senate of the government and opposition—the Labor Party and the coalition—combining to have the numbers to block a piece of legislation coming from the crossbench. We will see much more of this. I flagged this very circumstance on George Negus’s program on SBS last night. It is something that some members of the gallery have some difficulty in getting their heads around. I will come back to that in a moment.

This piece of legislation was brought forward by the Greens three years ago. It was then held over to await a taskforce reporting back after the Senate inquiry. The task force effectively endorsed the parameters of this bill. We have extended the time of prohibition for children’s TV junk food ads. I will quote from that task force report which, in turn, quotes the World Health Organisation. It says:

The World Health Organization has recognised that food marketing to children, particularly television advertising, is an important area for action to prevent obesity and has called upon governments to implement policies and strategies that reduce the impact of foods high in fat, sugar and salt and promote the responsible marketing of foods and beverages …

The general tenor of the argument from Senators Moore and Birmingham, and other contributors, was that this is a cultural problem. It reminds me very much of the now Leader of the Opposition saying that the issue of petrol sniffing was a cultural problem and should be a matter left to parents in Central Australia to deal with—and this at a time when it was known that 400 Indigenous children were addicted to petrol. Subsequent to that the national alarm about the permanent damage petrol sniffing caused to those children became so great that it became mandatory to get rid of the injurious petrol and replace it with non-sniffable petrol. Action was taken by the federal government.

We have a similar situation here—we hear it is a matter of parental responsibility; it does not cover the field; there are other things that should be done. But when it comes to a specific and very important contribution based on medical advice on what we should do if we are going to lessen the rate of obesity—which is increasing in our community and which Access Economics estimates is costing the Australian people $58 billion per annum—the government and the opposition say no, we cannot do that because something else needs to be done; it is a cultural problem. I reject that outright.

This is a clear opportunity to put a restriction on junk food advertising. As Senator Siewert made clear, $400 million to $500 million is being spent on advertising each year but more than that is coming back in profits to junk food advertisers. It is kids and parents who have to contend with that. As Senator Siewert said, why would you spend that money if you were not getting a dividend from it? We know from repeated reports in the Age and other newspapers that the junk food purveyors serially breach so-called commitments to not push their junk food to children during children’s TV hours. But, still, we have this ennui, this inability of government and opposition, the big parties, to act. There is a degree of fear of taking on the all-powerful advertising industry and associated food industries. So be it.

This is a good piece of legislation and it ought to pass the parliament, yet we have this decision by Labor, the Liberals and the National Party to reject the advice of the experts to support the legislation. It would have brought us somewhat into line with Norway, Quebec, the UK and other places which have banned exposing children to such advertising. It will come back to be revisited down the line, when more damage will have been done because of the failure to act now. The Greens will continue to advocate legislative action in this area, because it is the right thing to do. We are proud of this legislation and will continue to foster it in the public arena, where the polls show us that more than 80 per cent of people—in fact some polls show 90 per cent—want this form of legislation. But, of course, we are not going to see that support reflected here today.

This is time for private senators’ legislation, and we are engaged in a very healthy parliamentary process here. I want to comment on an article in today’s Daily Telegraph which talks about the territories legislation which I brought before the Senate and which it was agreed by the Senate yesterday would go to a committee. Simon Benson and Steve Lewis have commented in the Daily Telegraph in a way that misrepresents—with some deliberateness I would think, because they did not speak with me about it—the process of this parliament and Senate deliberation. I would ask the President to look at that misrepresentation and the matters I now draw to the Senate’s attention. The article says:

... the Greens claimed to have Government backing for a Bill to pave the way for gay marriage and legal euthanasia.

I would ask the President to see whether any such claim was made. What we do know is that an AAP report issued at 12.56 pm on 1 March publicly announced:

Labor will back the Australian Greens’ push to restore the rights of territory governments to legislate on such issues as voluntary euthanasia.

That report was wrong, because the legislation would not do that. The Daily Telegraph report says:

The Greens had ambushed the Government by quietly introducing amendments to its own private member’s Bill late on Tuesday night.

Those amendments were circulated on Friday night. I ask the President to look at that matter.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brown, we are actually dealing with the protecting children from junk food advertising bill.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, but we are in private members’ time and I am wanting to ensure that bills, whatever they might be, are properly dealt with in the public arena so that the public is not misled about this parliament and its proper processes.

The Acting Deputy President:

The question before the chair is that the second reading be put on this bill. I remind you of that.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. The Telegraph says that these amendments were quietly introduced on Tuesday night, but they were introduced on Friday night and circulated. A press release went out on 1 March headed ‘Brown welcomes government support for Greens push to grant territories power’. That press release announced exactly what we were doing—there was no ‘quietly’ about it. I do not know why Benson and Lewis were asleep when these reports went out. What did go out on Tuesday night was an explanatory piece of information which went to every member of the Senate. The article goes on:

The amendment made the Bill far more radical and turned a “machinery” bill into one that would pave the way for the territories to allow legal euthanasia and gay marriage ...

That is quite wrong. The amendment did nothing of the sort; it simply extended to the Northern Territory and Norfolk Island the same provisions that applied with the ACT. It did not alter or make more radical in any way the legislation that was before the Senate.

This is a very important piece of the political process. We cannot expect to have an honest public discourse if we have journalists who deliberately deceive the public about processes which are on the record, which are honestly put, by transmogrifying or misrepresenting those processes. The amendment did not turn a machinery bill into one that would do something else; it did nothing of the sort. I do not expect that the Murdoch press would have the honesty or the probity—with their readers, let alone with themselves—to correct this matter, although I will ask them to do so.

The story says that the bill would limit the Commonwealth’s ability to overturn territory legislation. It does nothing of the sort. It cannot do that. Section 122 of the Constitution provides for that. So it does not limit the Commonwealth’s ability. It certainly took away the executive’s ability, but the Commonwealth is this parliament. Mr Benson and Mr Lewis, who are bottom feeders when it comes to reporting the political process, should lift their game if they are going to be seen historically as fair players in letting the public of Australia know, in fact, what is happening in this parliamentary process.

Of course, behind this, in the reporting of the Senate by these particular reporters, is a political motive, which is to attack the government and the compact made between the government and certain Independents and the Greens. But the only compact I entered into in the last 24 hours was one with the opposition. I spoke to Senator Brandis about this yesterday. That was to agree to allow the committee—which the opposition had, three years ago, not wanted to take place—to look at this legislation. I have not seen this compact between the Greens and Senator Brandis and the coalition turned into news by the Murdoch press, because it has a very clear political intent, which should be kept to its editorial columns but which is written up in this most mischievous and unfair-to-the-public report in today’s paper.

I thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President, for allowing me to make those comments and I finally come back to the innovation we have today, which is private senators’ time here in the parliament. The Greens have worked very hard to achieve this outcome. It was first used by Senator Nash in this house in the last week of sitting. There is much more private senators’ legislation coming through here. As Ralph Nader—indeed, it goes back to Jefferson—commented, ‘Information is the currency of democracy.’ But there is a responsibility for those people who express as much ignorance as Benson and Lewis did today to catch up with the people’s vote in this great country of ours and the new arrangement that allows all parties to take part in legislating in the parliament, in fact for the first time in a century.

We are doing no more or less than happens in New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Germany or Ireland. The feedback I get is that people like it. The Murdoch press may not like it but the people do. The feedback is very positive indeed. I am very proud to be part of that and very happy today to be putting forward this legislation to protect children from junk food advertising, even if it is not going to proceed. I accept that that is the way the democratic parliament of Australia, one of the four oldest continuous democracies in the world, proceeds. I thank all senators for their contribution to this debate and I commend this bill to the second reading.

Question put:

That this bill be now read a second time.