Page 699 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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healthy lifestyle. However, more recent studies have been focusing on greater environmental factors such as those mentioned above. Obesity is mostly a lifestyle disease and so can be prevented, provided that lifestyles are changed.
One of the difficulties that face many obese children is that they often live their parents’ or community’s lifestyles, which generally then becomes difficult to break from in later years. The essence of that is that, if we are not teaching our children the right things to eat and to go out and get exercise at this early stage in their life, they are less likely to know to do that later on in life.
It is the role of the government, faced with this situation, to begin to agitate for a healthier community. This involves not just providing mandatory exercise routines or nutritional guides, although these are often a help; rather, it involves promoting a more family-friendly environment and developing lifelong skills, knowledge and habits in our children. Through that, they then know what they can do on into adulthood and it helps them get to adulthood in a healthy body. This is certainly no small feat, but it is good to see that the ACT government has a structured and reviewable plan in place to combat the structural problem.
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (4.12): All members, I am sure, will agree that this is a very timely MPI. We must recognise in the Assembly that the Stanhope government, I would say, is faced with a very serious decision—possibly we had the debate today in question time—as to what will be the future of Sport And Recreation ACT as one single organisation that is currently committed to developing and maintaining sporting activities in the ACT, which would naturally see young Canberrans live active and healthy lifestyles.
Ms MacDonald has referred to some of the very startling and alarming statistics regarding the exponential rise of obesity, and no more so than amongst children, so I will not repeat those. Just yesterday, my colleague Mr Stefaniak showed concern publicly that the health and fitness of Canberrans, and particularly young children, would be under threat if sport and recreation were to face budgetary cuts. The scarce resources and funding available in this sector could not possibly withstand a raid from a government so desperately seeking to make up shortfalls in other portfolio areas.
Today in question time we heard the Chief Minister state that there will not necessarily be any changes to Sport and Recreation ACT. But, whilst the current structure might remain in place, the Chief Minister did allude to the fact that cuts and savings could be made, that possibly the government would look at how every cent is spent and that the government intends to give this area a thorough going over.
If the Stanhope government’s functional review indicates that this portfolio should be split up and the responsibilities farmed out across government as the most effective and efficient use of its recourses, I doubt that the Canberra community would be supportive of such a recommendation without substantive evidence highlighting the positive impact that such a move would have on health and wellbeing, particularly of children.
To draw attention to an issue that holds affiliation with this current development, I remind the Assembly of a report that was produced by the Standing Committee on Health in 2003. Indeed, the very member who has raised this matter today was a member
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