Page 705 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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unless they have been approved by the health minister as beneficial to children’s health. So this is effectively a ban on junk food ads, although they are not the terms in which the amendment is phrased. We are awaiting the outcome of this move, because both Labor and Liberal have made lots of noises about their concern for the health of children but as yet have been very reluctant to regulate advertising as a means of dealing with it.
At an ACT level the Greens would like to see sport and physical activity made attractive to children and young people through programs designed in consultation with the youth sector. I do not know about you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, but when I was a child we used to play games in the street; it was a community thing. The streets were a lot safer, of course—well, that street was—and it was something that we grew up with. Children now are less inclined to grow up with that. Their parents are likely not to be at home after school. Children may be in after-school-care programs, which, by the way, are good places to encourage physical activity, or they are quietly and safely inside but, sadly, watching the TV or playing the computer—and these things are bad for not only their physical bodily health but also their eyesight.
We think of sport as being something that is done with teams, on fields and with lots of facilities. Yet dance is something that young people, and an increasing number of young men, are very keen to get involved with. Dance can be made attractive to boys. Quantum Leap is a program that has done this. It presents a role model of beautiful, lean bodies, male and female, and can change the way boys look at dance. Dancing is something you can do in your living room as well, and you do not need hugely funded programs to do it.
I want to reflect the concerns that Mrs Burke mentioned in relation to funding of our sporting and recreation organisations. We need to realise that every dollar spent on organised sport is matched, and more than that, by volunteer effort, and this is probably one of the largest areas of volunteering in the ACT. It is also a way to create and strengthen family and community links.
Fiona Johnstone wrote to us—she has probably written to everybody, actually, as Mr Stanhope mentioned this—to say that the small amount of the budget, less than one per cent, currently allocated to sport and recreation delivers considerable benefits, so spending cuts would not have much impact on the bottom line but a major benefit on people’s health.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.37): I thank Ms MacDonald for raising this important matter and I would like to outline how this government is strongly supportive of improving the health and fitness of Canberra’s children and young people through our education system.
As members would know, I have a strong interest in education in the ACT. In the 2004-05 budget, the ACT government committed $1.5 million over four years to health and physical activity initiatives in schools, and this included $1 million for the promoting healthy students initiative to improve the health and fitness of all children in the ACT. The initiative supports schools to implement education programs that focus on the importance of personal health and good nutrition. Over half a million dollars is also being provided to employ health coordinators in colleges to facilitate important community and health services for youth on college campuses. The coordinators also
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