Page 179 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012

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MS GALLAGHER: with a particular job to do. That is what they are doing. It is a group of people that have been given a task, and that is what they are doing.

Opposition members interjecting—

MS GALLAGHER: That is a normal definition of a task force. You might be surprised at that, but that is what normally happens when you pull together a task force. You are pulling together different people to do a particular job and provide advice, and that is exactly what they are doing.

MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Dr Bourke.

DR BOURKE: Minister, could you give us some examples of why health promotion is particularly important to the Canberra community, particularly in relation to obesity in children?

MS GALLAGHER: I thank Dr Bourke for the question. We will be discussing this later today in Ms Porter’s motion before the Assembly. But I think what is very clear in all of the data, and this is why we have got a national health prevention agency that has been commissioned and set up nationally, is that in Australia, in terms of the burden of disease and in terms of the pressures that are facing our health system, they are coming at us from a younger generation; that is, when you have 30 per cent of your children under the age of five bordering into the unhealthy weight range, you are going to have very significant pressures on the health budget when those young people get to the age where they start consuming health services. And they will start consuming them earlier. The statistics are not going the way we would want.

We have set ourselves the target of zero growth, and that is about stopping the continuing increase in the number of people, particularly children, who are bordering into the unhealthy weight ranges. That is a very significant challenge that we have set ourselves. Unless we start setting some goals and actually refocusing a lot of our effort into this area, the community will not be able to pay for the health system that is required to meet the burden of disease that comes with those very scary statistics.

Tourism—government support

MS BERRY: My question is to the Minister for Tourism and Events. Could the minister update the Assembly on the work the government is undertaking to help achieve the goals of the federal government’s tourism 2020 vision?

MR BARR: I thank Ms Berry for the question and for her interest in matters tourism and events. The tourism 2020 strategy is a national plan that has been agreed to by the federal government and, indeed, all state and territory governments. The aim is to build resilience and competitiveness within the Australian tourism industry and to provide a road map to help steer the industry towards its full potential.

The ultimate goal is to double the overnight tourism expenditure in this country annually, so the goal is to get to $140 billion annually by the end of this decade. This


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