Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about an issue which I am very passionate about, and that is sport, particularly the participation of women in sport and some implications around healthy lifestyles and the recent release of dietary guidelines. Next weekend we will see a first in the Women's National Basketball League when the only regional team in the competition plays in the grand final. That event will be held after a lot of passionate lobbying by locals in regional Australia—the home of the Bendigo Spirit—in Bendigo in northern Central Victoria.

It is an exciting time for Bendigo and the Bendigo Spirit team, who secured their spot in the final with a 78 to 71 win over Dandenong last weekend. The buzz surrounding the game itself and the interest and support it has raised in the local community is astounding and a real credit to the players and organisers alike. It is a tribute to the young women who train hard and play for the Bendigo Spirit: Chantella, Andrea, Kristi Harrower, Chelsea, Gabrielle, Madeleine, Kelly, Jane, Rachel, Renae, Ashleigh, Hayley, Olivia and Rebecca. It is a tribute to the coaching staff of Bernie Harrower, Jeremi Moule and Paul O'Brien, and to their team who support the Bendigo Spirit behind the scenes. It is a tribute to the organisers and also a tribute to the wider Bendigo community for so proudly supporting their team. It is a real achievement for the team as we need to recognise that it is difficult for a regionally based team to get access to training and competition. The Bendigo Spirit are a great example of the success that can be achieved when players display the solidarity that regional communities often do when they band together so passionately.

I would also like to make note that this week in Parliament House we celebrate the contribution of women athletes to sport at the Centenary of Canberra Sportswomen's Ball tomorrow night when the Top 100 Australian Sportswomen of All Time will be announced. As much as I love sport, I know I will not be on the list. It will be very inspiring, I am sure, to be surrounded by those role models. Similarly—and it seems to be the week for it—I am heading to Bendigo on Friday night for the 48th Annual Sports Star of the Year awards, sponsored by the Bendigo Advertiser and WIN TV, where all sports are represented across genders. The special guest speaker for that evening will be well-known Australian Olympian Brooke Hanson.

This brings me to the point that having role models such as Brooke Hanson, the Bendigo Spirit and the Top 100 Australian Sportswomen of All Time matters. Research indicates that people who are good at sport, who enjoy sport, are likely to participate in sport throughout their lives. People who are already fit and healthy are also those in our communities who are more likely to take advantage of public health campaigns promoting sport and participation. Last year the federal government spent $300 million on promoting participation in sport. As a former phys ed teacher I can vouch for the influence a great PE teacher has on ensuring young people leave school with a positive perspective of sport and physical activity. I think teachers as role models need to be very aware of the positive and the negative messages we send to our students in their development and understanding of themselves as physically active beings.

Role modelling is important. It is the key in parenting and it is the key in leadership. It is the key to developing healthy behaviours. Babies watch their parents to learn how to walk and talk and eat. Young children also watch closely to see how the significant people in their lives interact with others, and so develop their social skills. Similarly, in leadership roles the conduct and attitude of the leader of an organisation or group influences the behaviour of those within it. I welcome our athletes, male and female, who display characteristics of determination, dedication and effort. They sweat and they do not worry how that looks, because to be strong is to be healthy and in their case fit for purpose. During the WNBL season watching the Vixens it has been important to see female athletes who are so competitive and determined to succeed on the national stage. That brings me to speak about the importance of individual responsibility and being accountable to the team, with hard work and goal setting all playing a part in a healthy life style.

Last week the Australian dietary guidelines, Eat for Health,—not for taste, for health—were released by the NHMRC. It is a significant cost in terms of money and people hours and essentially the guidelines tell Australians what they should and should not eat. The underpinning assumption is that to be healthy one has to follow this advice, and that is simply ridiculous. I know plenty of people who eat sugar and are still healthy. I am sure Epicurus is turning in his grave somewhere in a very austere Greece. Whilst it is useful to state aspirations, there are several issues that I have around this public debate. The human relationship with food is complex. We live a very sedentary lifestyle. Humans in Western countries spend their days sitting rather than ranging the savanna. This formula is already starting out skewed in terms of calories in and calories out. In the good old days we could eat what we liked as long as we could catch it. But we did not eat very regularly. Our diet was not varied, our tastebuds were not stimulated and our life expectancy in those days was very, very low.

This is the paradox of modern health advances: we live longer but are chronically ill for a longer period of time. And it is a First World issue. Wealthy people in the West are less likely to be obese, whilst the converse is true for those in developing countries.

Another issue with food and our relationship with it in the modern western world is that it was not a moral issue but it is now. Women and men speak of 'being good', while restricting their diet or when exercising.

In a similar vein, whilst we talk in terms of being 'good' and 'bad' around food, we have to be very mindful that it is actually not a sin to eat sugar or fat. The idea that individuals need government telling them what to eat and how much to exercise and then using taxes to promote these behaviour changes is simply draconian and misses the point. But we do have a crisis on our hands and it necessitates a moralistic response. Or does it?

As Michael Gard, an academic in health sciences, attests: 'There have been many attempts by governments, both state and federal, to promote physical activity and healthy eating, with a very poor evidence base. But they are very happy to go and spend a lot of public money without actually understanding the research behind whether this will actually equate to behaviour change.'

He goes on to discuss the fact that the increase in health panics in western countries can greatly exaggerate the problem. Clearly, the result has been a waste of resources and misdirected policy. I am not arguing that to be obese, to be overweight, is not a health issue. It is. But the public debate needs to be centred on credible science and a sound evidence base to ensure the best direction of public money.

Governments like to tax bad behaviour as a behaviour-change mechanism. This is a simplistic, society-wide response to a complex individual problem. It is unlike speeding and drink driving.

The easy way out, as was suggested by the Greens last year, of our obesity epidemic is to tax fast food. However, this is simply another elitist argument from Brunswick. The fat content in fancy French cheese would be very similar to that of a hamburger with the lot, from my local fish and chip shop. Additionally, taxing fatty or sugary foods would be regressive, as in western countries poorer people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. There are also measurement issues, as each item of food in circulation would have to measured, and we have the history of the Danish fat tax being axed after one year.

This brings me to another point—that is, that moderation is key to a healthy lifestyle. Ideas of freedom are not spoken about often enough in Australia. Our relaxed way of life may seem dismissive, as our freedom and our capacity to make decisions about our own lives are whittled away. Because the underlying principle informing people who create a crisis that then needs to be solved, who moralise about such a basic necessity—and pleasure—as food, and who seek to change whole populations' behaviour using very blunt instruments without a strong evidence base, is that you as an autonomous person are not clever enough to make decisions about your own life.

In the wake of dietary guidelines, which ask us to limit the good stuff and increase the bland stuff, I am reminded of Epicurus—some would say he should be getting the MasterChef royalties—who noted:

Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.

Whilst the government is intent on telling Australians what is good for us, it should be about mutual responsibility and it should be about role modelling. It could also be analogous with good governance, a balanced approach: what goes out should be equivalent to what goes in. That follows on from our very public and pertinent debate that we have been having in the chamber this week about the mining tax. I will leave it there.